Chimney- Pot  Papers. 


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Copyright,  1919,  by 
Yale  University  Press. 


First  published,  1919. 
Second  printing,  1920. 


Publisher's  Note: 

The  Yale  University  Press  makes  grateful 
acknowledgment  to  the  Editors  of  the 
Unpopular  Review  and  The  Century  Maga 
zine  for  permission  to  include  in  the 
present  volume,  essays  of  which  they  were 
the  original  publishers. 


-     -LTCH  t 


To  Minerva,  my  Wife. 


429137 


Contents. 

I.     The  Chimney-Pots 11 

II.     The  Quest  of  the  Lost  Digamma     .  19 

^    III.     On  a  Rainy  Morning       ....  35 

IV.     "1917" 43 

^x     V.     On  Going  Afoot 47 

^VI.     On  Livelihoods 68 

VII.     The  Tread  of  the  Friendly  Giants  .  79 

VIII.     On  Spending  a  Holiday  ....  89 

IK.     Runaway  Studies 109 

X.     On  Turning  into  Forty  ....  117 
^"XI.     On  the  Difference  between  Wit  and 

Humor 128 

XII.     On  Going  to  a  Party 136 

XIII.     On  a  Pair  of  Leather  Suspenders  .  146 

XIV.     Boots  for  Runaways 159 

XV.     On  Hanging  a  Stocking  at  Christ 
mas  169 


The  Chimney-Pots. 

MY  windows  look  across  the  roofs  of  the 
crowded  city  and  my  thoughts  often  take 
their  suggestion  from  the  life  that  is  mani 
fest  at  my  neighbors'  windows  and  on  these  roofs. 

Across  the  way,  one  story  lower  than  our  own, 
there  dwells  "with  his  subsidiary  parents"  a  little  lad 
who  has  been  ill  for  several  weeks.  After  his  house 
hold  is  up  and  dressed  I  regularly  discover  him  in 
bed,  with  his  books  and  toys  piled  about  him.  Some 
times  his  knees  are  raised  to  form  a  snowy  mountain, 
and  he  leads  his  paper  soldiers  up  the  slope.  Some 
times  his  kitten  romps  across  the  coverlet  and  pounces 
on  his  wriggling  toes;  and  again  sleeps  on  the  sunny 
window-sill.  His  book,  by  his  rapt  attention,  must 
deal  with  far-off  islands  and  with  waving  cocoa- 
nut  trees.  Lately  I  have  observed  that  a  yellow 
drink  is  brought  to  him  in  the  afternoon — a  delicious 
blend  of  eggs  and  milk — and  by  the  zest  with  which 
he  licks  the  remainder  from  his  lips,  it  is  a  prime 
favorite  of  his.  In  these  last  few  days,  however,  I 
have  seen  the  lad's  nose  flat  and  eager  on  the  window, 
and  I  know  that  he  is  convalescent. 

At  another  set  of  windows — now  that  the  days  are 
growing  short  and  there  is  need  of  lights — I  see 
in  shadowgraph  against  the  curtains  an  occasional 


1%  •**'«  :'*>  CHIMNEY-TOT  PAPERS 

domestic  drama.  Tonight,  by  the  appearance  of 
hurry  and  the  shifting  of  garments,  I  surmise  that 
there  is  preparation  for  a  party.  Presently,  when 
the  upstairs  lights  have  disappeared,  I  shall  see  these 
folk  below,  issuing  from  their  door  in  glossy  raiment. 
My  dear  sir  and  madame,  I  wish  you  an  agreeable 
dinner  and — if  your  tooth  resembles  mine — ice-cream 
for  dessert. 

The  window  of  a  kitchen,  also,  is  opposite,  and  I 
often  look  on  savory  messes  as  they  ripen  on  the  fire — 
a  stirring  with  a  long  iron  spoon.  This  spoon  is  of 
such  unusual  length  that  even  if  one  supped  with  the 
devil  (surely  the  fearful  adage  cannot  apply  to  our 
quiet  street)  he  might  lift  his  food  in  safety  from  the 
common  pot. 

A  good  many  stories  lower  there  is  a  bit  of  roof 
that  is  set  with  wicker  furniture  and  a  row  of  gay 
plants  along  the  gutter.  Here  every  afternoon 
exactly  at  six — the  roof  being  then  in  shadow — a  man 
appears  and  reads  his  evening  paper.  Later  his  wife 
joins  him  and  they  eat  their  supper  from  a  tray. 
They  are  sunk  almost  in  a  well  of  buildings  which, 
like  the  hedge  of  a  fairy  garden,  shuts  them  from  all 
contact  with  the  world.  And  here  they  sit  when  the 
tray  has  been  removed.  The  twilight  falls  early  at 
their  level  and,  like  cottagers  in  a  valley,  they  watch 
the  daylight  that  still  gilds  the  peaks  above  them. 

There  is  another  of  these  out-of-door  rooms  above 
me  on  a  higher  building.  From  my  lower  level  I  can 


THE  CHIMNEY-POTS  13 

see  the  bright  canvas  and  the  side  of  the  trellis  that 
supports  it.  Here,  doubtless,  in  the  cool  breeze  of 
these  summer  evenings,  honest  folk  sip  their  coffee 
and  watch  the  lights  start  across  the  city. 

Thus,  all  around,  I  have  glimpses  of  my  neigh 
bors — a  form  against  the  curtains — a  group,  in  the 
season,  around  the  fire — the  week's  darning  in  a 
rocker — an  early  nose  sniffing  at  the  open  window 
the  morning  airs. 

But  it  is  these  roofs  themselves  that  are  the  general 
prospect. 

Close  at  hand  are  graveled  surfaces  with  spouts 
and  whirling  vents  and  chimneys.  Here  are  posts 
and  lines  for  washing,  and  a  scuttle  from  which  once 
a  week  a  laundress  pops  her  head.  Although  her 
coming  is  timed  to  the  very  hour — almost  to  the 
minute — yet  when  the  scuttle  stirs  it  is  with  an  ap 
pearance  of  mystery,  as  if  one  of  the  forty  thieves 
were  below,  boosting  at  the  rocks  that  guard  his  cave. 
But  the  laundress  is  of  so  unromantic  and  jouncing 
a  figure  that  I  abandon  the  fancy  when  no  more  than 
her  shoulders  are  above  the  scuttle.  She  is,  however, 
an  amiable  creature  and,  if  the  wind  is  right,  I  hear 
her  singing  at  her  task.  When  clothespins  fill  her 
mouth,  she  experiments  with  popular  tunes.  One 
of  these  wooden  bipeds  once  slipped  inside  and  nearly 
strangled  her. 

In  the  distance,  on  the  taller  buildings,  water  tanks 
are  lifted  against  the  sky.  They  are  perched  aloft 


14  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

on  three  fingers,  as  it  were,  as  if  the  buildings  were 
just  won  to  prohibition  and  held  up  their  water  cups 
in  the  first  excitement  of  a  novice  to  pledge  the  cause. 
Let  hard  liquor  crouch  and  tremble  in  its  rathskeller 
below  the  sidewalk!  In  the  basement  let  musty  kegs 
roll  and  gurgle  with  hopeless  fear!  Der  Tag!  The 
roof,  the  triumphant  roof,  has  gone  dry. 

This  range  of  buildings  with  water  tanks  and 
towers  stops  my  gaze  to  the  North.  There  is  a 
crowded  world  beyond — rolling  valleys  of  human 
ity — the  heights  of  Harlem — but  although  my  win 
dows  stand  on  tiptoe,  they  may  not  discover  these 
distant  scenes. 

On  summer  days  these  roofs  burn  in  the  sun  and 
spirals  of  heat  arise.  Tar  flows  from  the  joints  in 
the  tin.  Tar  and  the  adder — is  it  not  a  bright  day 
that  brings  them  forth?  Now  washing  hangs  limp 
upon  the  line.  There  is  no  frisk  in  undergarments. 
These  stockings  that  hang  shriveled  and  anaemic — 
can  it  be  possible  that  they  once  trotted  to  a  lively 
tune,  or  that  a  lifted  skirt  upon  a  crosswalk  drew  the 
eye?  The  very  spouts  and  chimneys  droop  in  the 
heavy  sunlight.  All  the  spinning  vents  are  still.  On 
these  roofs,  as  on  a  steaming  altar,  August  celebrates 
its  hot  midsummer  rites.  ^ 

But  in  winter,  when  the  wmd  is  up,  the  roofs  show 
another  aspect.  The  storm,  in  frayed  and  cloudy 
garment,  now  plunges  across  the  city.  It  snaps 


THE  CHIMNEY-POTS  15 

its  boisterous  fingers.  It  pipes  a  song  to  sum 
mon  rowdy  companions  off  the  sea.  The  whirling 
vents  hum  shrilly  to  the  tune.  And  the  tempests  are 
roused,  and  the  windy  creatures  of  the  hills  make 
answer.  The  towers — even  the  nearer  buildings — are 
obscured.  The  sky  is  gray  with  rain.  Smoke  is  torn 
from  the  chimneys.  Down  below  let  a  fire  be  snug 
upon  the  hearth  and  let  warm  folk  sit  and  toast  their 
feet!  Let  shadows  romp  upon  the  walls!  Let  the 
andirons  wink  at  the  sleepy  cat!  Cream  or  lemon, 
two  lumps  or  one.  Here  aloft  is  brisker  business. 
There  is  storm  upon  the  roof.  The  tempest  holds  a 
carnival.  And  the  winds  pounce  upon  the  smoke  as 
it  issues  from  the  chimney-pots  and  wring  it  by  the 
neck  as  they  bear  it  off. 

And  sometimes  it  seems  that  these  roofs  represent 
youth,  and  its  purpose,  its  ambition  and  adventure. 
For,  from  of  old,  have  not  poets  lived  in  garrets? 
And  are  not  all  poets  young  even  if  their  beards  are 
white?  Round  and  round  the  poet  climbs,  up  these 
bare  creaking  flights  to  the  very  top.  There  is  a  stove 
to  be  lighted — unless  the  woodbox  fails — a  sloping 
ceiling  and  a  window  huddled  to  the  floor.  The  poet's 
fingers  may  be  numb.  Although  the  inkpot  be  full, 
his  stomach  may  be  emjrty.  And  yet  from  this  win 
dow,  lately,  a  poem  was  cast  upward  to  the  moon. 
And  youth  and  truth  still  rhyme  in  these  upper  rooms. 
Linda's  voice  is  still  the  music  of  a  sonnet.  Still  do 


16  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

the  roses  fade,  and  love  is  always  like  the  constant 
stars.  And  once,  this! — surely  from  a  garret: 

When  I  behold,  upon  the  night's  starr'd  face, 
Huge  cloudy  symbols  of  a  high  romance, 
And  think  that  I  may  never  live  to  trace 
Their  shadows,  with  the  magic  hand  of  chance — 

Poor  starved  wretches  are  we  who  live  softly  in  the 
lower  stories,  although  we  are  fat  of  body. 

If  a  mighty  pair  of  shears  were  to  clip  the  city 
somewhere  below  these  windy  gutters  would  there  not 
be  a  dearth  of  poems  in  the  spring?  Who  then 
would  be  left  to  note  the  changing  colors  of  the  twi 
light  and  the  peaceful  transit  of  the  stars?  Would 
gray  beech  trees  in  the  winter  find  a  voice?  Would 
there  still  be  a  song  of  water  and  of  wind?  Who 
would  catch  the  rhythm  of  the  waves  and  the  wheat 
fields  in  the  breeze?  What  lilts  and  melodies  would 
vanish  from  the  world!  How  stale  and  flat  the  city 
without  its  roofs ! 

But  it  is  at  night  that  these  roofs  show  best.  Then, 
as  below  a  philosopher  in  his  tower,  the  city  spreads 
its  web  of  streets,  and  its  lights  gleam  in  answer  to 
the  lights  above.  Galileo  in  his  tower — Teufels- 
drockh  at  his  far-seeing  attic  window — saw  this 
glistening  pageantry  and  had  thoughts  unutterable. 

In  this  darkness  these  roofs  are  the  true  suburb  of 
the  world — the  outpost — the  pleasant  edge  of  our 
human  earth  turned  up  toward  the  barren  moon. 


THE  CHIMNEY-POTS  17 

Chimneys  stand  as  sentinels  on  the  border  of  the  sky. 
Pointed  towers  mark  the  passage  of  the  stars.  Great 
buildings  are  the  cliffs  on  the  shores  of  night.  A  sky 
light  shows  as  a  pleasant  signal  to  guide  the  wander 
ing  skipper  of  the  moon. 


The  Quest  of  the  Lost  Digamma. 

MANY  years  ago  there  was  a  club  of  college 
undergraduates  which  called  itself  the  Lost 
Digamma.  The  digamma,  I  am  informed, 
is  a  letter  that  was  lost  in  prehistoric  times  from  the 
Greek  alphabet.  A  prudent  alphabet  would  have 
offered  a  reward  at  once  and  would  have  beaten  up 
the  bushes  all  about,  but  evidently  these  remedies  were 
neglected.  As  the  years  went  on  the  other  letters 
gradually  assumed  its  duties.  The  philological 
chores,  so  to  speak,  night  and  morning,  that  had  once 
fallen  to  the  digamma,  they  took  upon  themselves, 
until  the  very  name  of  the  letter  was  all  but  lost. 

Those  who  are  practiced  in  such  matters — humped 
men  who  blink  with  learning — claim  to  discover  evi 
dence  of  the  letter  now  and  then  in  their  reading. 
Perhaps  the  missing  letter  still  gives  a  false  quantity 
to  a  vowel  or  shifts  an  accent.  It  is  remembered,  as 
it  were,  by  its  vacant  chair.  Or  rather,  like  a  ghost 
it  haunts  a  word,  rattling  a  warning  lest  we  dis 
arrange  a  syllable.  Its  absence,  however,  in  the  flesh, 
despite  the  lapse  of  time — for  it  went  off  long  ago 
when  the  mastodon  still  wandered  on  the  pleasant 
upland — its  continued  absence  vexes  the  learned. 
They  scan  ancient  texts  for  an  improper  syllable  and 
mark  the  time  upon  their  brown  old  fingers,  if  pos- 


tO  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

sibly  a  jolting  measure  may  offer  them  a  clue.  Al 
though  it  must  appear  that  the  digamma — if  it  yet 
rambles  alive  somewhere  beneath  the  moon — has  by 
this  time  grown  a  beard  and  is  lost  beyond  recognition, 
still  old  gentlemen  meet  weekly  and  read  papers  to 
one  another  on  the  progress  of  the  search.  Like  the 
old  woman  of  the  story  they  still  keep  a  light  burning 
in  their  study  windows  against  the  wanderer's  return. 

Now  it  happened  once  that  a  group  of  under 
graduates,  stirred  to  sympathy  beyond  the  common 
usage  of  the  classroom,  formed  themselves  into  a  club 
to  aid  in  the  search.  It  is  not  recorded  that  they  were 
the  deepest  students  in  the  class,  yet  mark  their  zeal! 
On  a  rumor  arising  from  the  chairman  that  the  pres 
ence  of  the  lost  digamma  was  suspected  the  group 
rushed  together  of  an  evening,  for  there  was  an  in 
stinct  that  the  digamma,  like  the  raccoon,  was  easiest 
trapped  at  night.  To  stay  their  stomachs  against  a 
protracted  search,  for  their  colloquies  sat  late,  they 
ordered  a  plentiful  dinner  to  be  placed  before  them. 
Also,  on  the  happy  chance  that  success  might  crown 
the  night,  a  row  of  stout  Tobies  was  set  upon  the 
board.  If  the  prodigal  lurked  without  and  his 
vagrant  nose  were  seen  at  last  upon  the  window,  then 
musty  liquor,  from  a  Toby's  three-cornered  hat, 
would  be  a  fitting  pledge  for  his  return. 

I  do  not  know  to  a  certainty  the  place  of  these 
meetings,  but  I  choose  to  fancy  that  it  was  an  upper 
room  in  a  modest  restaurant  that  went  by  the  name 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  LOST  DIG  AM  MA        $1 

of  Mory's — not  the  modern  Mory's  that  affects  the 
manners  of  a  club,  but  the  original  Temple  Bar, 
remembered  justly  for  its  brown  ale  and  golden 
bucks. 

There  was,  of  course,  a  choice  of  places  where  the 
Lost  Digamma  might  have  pushed  its  search.  Waiv 
ing  Billy's  and  the  meaner  joints  conferred  on  fresh 
men,  there  was,  to  be  sure,  the  scholastic  murk  of 
Traeger's — one  room  especially  at  the  rear  with  steins 
around  the  walls.  There  was  Heublein's,  also.  Even 
the  Tontine  might  rouse  a  student.  But  I  choose  to 
consider  that  Mory's  was  the  place. 

Never  elsewhere  has  cheese  sputtered  on  toast  with 
such  hot  delight.  Never  have  such  fair  round  eggs 
perched  upon  the  top.  The  hen  who  laid  the  golden 
egg — for  it  could  be  none  other  than  she  who  worked 
the  miracle  at  Mory's — must  have  clucked  like  a  brag 
gart  when  the  smoking  dish  came  in.  The  dullest 
nose,  even  if  it  had  drowsed  like  a  Stoic  through  the 
day,  perked  and  quivered  when  the  breath  came  off 
the  kitchen.  Ears  that  before  had  never  wiggled  to 
the  loudest  noise  came  flapping  forward  when  the 
door  was  opened.  Or  maybe  in  those  days  your 
wealth,  huddled  closely  through  the  week,  stretched 
on  Saturday  night  to  a  mutton  chop  with  bacon  on 
the  side.  This  chop,  named  of  the  southern  downs, 
was  so  big  that  it  curled  like  an  anchovy  to  get  upon 
the  plate.  The  sheep  that  bore  it  across  the  grassy 
moors  must  have  out-topped  the  horse.  The  hills 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


must  have  shaken  beneath  his  tread.  With  what 
eagerness  you  squared  your  lean  elbows  for  the  feast, 
with  knife  and  fork  turned  upwards  in  your  fists! 

But  chops  in  these  modern  days  are  retrograde. 
Sheep  have  fallen  to  a  decadent  race.  Cheese  has  lost 
its  cunning.  Someone,  alas,  as  the  story  says,  has 
killed  the  hen  that  laid  the  golden  egg.  Mory's  is 
sunk  and  gone.  Its  faded  prints  of  the  Old  Brick 
Row,  its  tables  carved  with  students'  names,  its  brown 
Tobies  in  their  three-cornered  hats,  the  brasses  of  the 
tiny  bar,  the  rickety  rooms  themselves — these  rise 
from  the  past  like  genial  ghosts  and  beckon  us 
toward  pleasant  memories. 

Such  was  the  zeal  in  those  older  days  which  the 
members  of  the  Lost  Digamma  spent  upon  their  quest 
that  belated  pedestrians— if  the  legend  of  the  district 
be  believed — have  stopped  upon  the  curb  and  have 
inquired  the  meaning  of  the  glad  shouts  that  issued 
from  the  upper  windows,  and  they  have  gone  off 
marveling  at  the  enthusiasm  attendant  on  this  high 
endeavor.  It  is  rumored  that  once  when  the  excite 
ment  of  the  chase  had  gone  to  an  unusual  height  and 
the  students  were  beating  their  Tobies  on  the  table, 
one  of  them,  a  fellow  of  uncommon  ardor,  lunging 
forward  from  his  chair,  got  salt  upon  the  creature's 
tail.  The  exploit  overturned  the  table  and  so  rocked 
the  house  that  Louis,  who  was  the  guardian  of  the 
place,  put  his  nose  above  the  stairs  and  cooled  the 
meeting.  Had  it  not  been  for  his  interference — he 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  LOST  DIG  AM  MA        23 

was  a  good-natured  fellow  but  unacquainted  with  the 
frenzy  that  marks  the  scholar — the  lost  digamma 
might  have  been  trapped,  to  the  lasting  glory  of  the 
college. 

As  to  the  further  progress  of  the  club  I  am  not 
informed.  Doubtless  it  ran  an  honorable  course  and 
passed  on  from  class  to  class  the  tradition  of  its  high 
ambition,  but  never  again  was  the  lost  digamma  so 
nearly  in  its  grasp.  If  it  still  meets  upon  its  mid 
night  labors,  a  toothless  member  boasts  of  that  night 
of  its  topmost  glory,  and  those  who  have  gathered  to 
his  words  rap  their  stale  unprofitable  mugs  upon  the 
table. 

It  would  be  unjust  to  assume  that  you  are  so  poor 
a  student  as  myself.  Doubtless  you  are  a  scholar  and 
can  discourse  deeply  of  the  older  centuries.  You 
know  the  ancient  works  of  Tweedledum  and  can  dis 
tinguish  to  a  hair's  breadth  'twixt  him  and  Tweedle- 
dee.  Learning  is  candy  on  your  tooth.  Perhaps  you 
stroke  your  sagacious  beard  and  give  a  nimble  reason 
for  the  lightning.  To  you  the  hills  have  whispered 
how  they  came,  and  the  streams  their  purpose  and 
ambition.  You  have  studied  the  first  shrinkage  of 
the  earth  when  the  plains  wrinkled  and  broke  into 
mountain  peaks.  The  mystery  of  the  stars  is  to  you 
as  familiar  as  your  garter.  If  such  depth  is  yours, 
I  am  content  to  sit  before  you  like  a  bucket  below 
a  tap. 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


At  your  banquet  I  sit  as  a  poor  relation.  If  the 
viands  hold,  I  fork  a  cold  morsel  from  your  dish.  .  .  . 

But  modesty  must  not  gag  me.  I  do  myself  some 
what  lean  towards  knowledge.  I  run  to  a  dictionary 
on  a  disputed  word,  and  I  point  my  inquiring  nose 
upon  the  page  like  a  careful  schoolman.  On  a  spurt 
I  pry  into  an  uncertain  date,  but  I  lack  the  persever 
ance  and  the  wakefulness  for  sustained  endeavor.  To 
repair  my  infirmity,  I  frequently  go  among  those  of 
steadier  application,  if  haply  their  devotion  may 
prove  contagious.  It  was  but  lately  that  I  dined  with 
a  group  of  the  Cognoscenti.  There  were  light  words 
at  first,  as  when  a  juggler  carelessly  tosses  up  a  ball 
or  two  just  to  try  his  hand  before  he  displays  his 
genius  —  a  jest  or  two,  into  which  I  entered  as  an 
equal.  In  these  shallow  moments  we  waded  through 
our  soup.  But  we  had  hardly  got  beyond  the  fish 
when  the  company  plunged  into  greater  depth.  I 
soon  discovered  that  I  was  among  persons  skilled  in 
those  economic  and  social  studies  that  now  most  stir 
us.  My  neighbor  on  the  left  offered  to  gossip  with 
me  on  the  latest  evaluations  and  eventuations  —  for 
such  were  her  pleasing  words  —  in  the  department  of 
knowledge  dearest  to  her.  While  I  was  still  fumbling 
for  a  response,  my  neighbor  on  the  right,  abandoning 
her  meat,  informed  me  of  the  progress  of  a  survey  of 
charitable  organizations  that  was  then  under  way. 
By  mischance,  however,  while  flipping  up  the  salad 
on  my  fork,  I  dropped  a  morsel  on  the  cloth,  and  I 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  LOST  DIGAMMA        25 

was  so  intent  in  manoeuvring  my  plates  and  spoons 
to  cover  up  the  speck,  that  I  lost  a  good  part  of  her 
improving  discourse. 

I  was  still,  however,  making  a  tolerable  pretense 
of  attention,  when  a  learned  person  across  the  table 
was  sharp  enough  to  see  that  I  was  a  novice  in  the 
gathering.  For  my  improvement,  therefore,  he  fixed 
his  great  round  glasses  in  my  direction.  In  my  con 
fusion  they  seemed  burning  lenses  hotly  focused  on 
me.  Under  such  a  glare,  he  thought,  my  tender 
sprouts  of  knowledge  must  spring  up  to  full  blossom. 

When  he  had  my  attention,  he  proceeded  to  lay 
out  the  dinner  into  calories,  which  I  now  discovered 
to  be  a  kind  of  heat  or  nutritive  unit.  He  cast  his 
appraisal  on  the  meat  and  vegetables,  and  turned  an 
ear  toward  the  pantry  door  if  by  chance  he  might 
catch  a  hint  of  the  dessert  for  his  estimate,  but  by  this 
time,  being  overwrought,  I  gave  up  all  pretense,  and 
put  my  coarse  attention  on  my  plate. 

Sometimes  I  fall  on  better  luck.  It  was  but  yester 
day  that  I  sat  waiting  for  a  book  in  the  Public 
Library,  when  a  young  woman  came  and  sat  beside 
me  on  the  common  bench.  Immediately  she  opened 
a  monstrous  note-book,  and  fell  to  studying  it.  I  had 
myself  been  reading,  but  I  had  held  my  book  at  a 
stingy  angle  against  the  spying  of  my  neighbors.  As 
the  young  woman  was  of  a  more  open  nature,  she  laid 
hers  out  flat.  It  is  my  weakness  to  pry  upon  an 
other's  book.  Especially  if  it  is  old  and  worn — a 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


musty  history  or  an  essay  from  the  past — I  squirm 
and  edge  myself  until  I  can  follow  the  reader's  thumb. 

At  the  top  of  each  page  she  had  written  the  title 
of  a  book,  with  a  space  below  for  comment,  now  well 
filled.  There  were  a  hundred  of  these  titles,  and  all 
of  them  concerned  John  Paul  Jones.  She  busied  her 
self  scratching  and  amending  her  notes.  The  whole 
was  thrown  into  such  a  snarl  of  interlineation,  was  so 
disfigured  with  revision,  and  the  writing  so  started 
up  the  margins  to  get  breath  at  the  top,  that  I  won 
dered  how  she  could  possibly  bring  a  straight  narra 
tive  out  of  the  confusion.  Yet  here  was  a  book 
growing  up  beneath  my  very  nose.  If  in  a  year's 
time — or  perhaps  in  a  six-month,  if  the  manuscript 
is  not  hawked  too  long  among  publishers — if  when 
again  the  nights  are  raw,  a  new  biography  of  John 
Paul  Jones  appears,  and  you  cut  its  leaves  while  your 
legs  are  stretched  upon  the  hearth,  I  bid  you  to  recog 
nize  as  its  author  my  companion  on  the  bench.  Al 
though  she  did  not  have  beauty  to  rouse  a  bachelor, 
yet  she  had  an  agreeable  face  and,  if  a  soft  white 
collar  of  pleasing  fashion  be  evidence,  she  put  more 
than  a  scholar's  care  upon  her  dress. 

I  am  not  entirely  a  novice  in  a  library.  Once  I 
gained  admittance  to  the  Reading  Room  of  the  Brit 
ish  Museum — no  light  task  even  before  the  war. 
This  was  the  manner  of  it.  First,  I  went  among  the 
policemen  who  frequent  the  outer  corridors,  and  in 
quired  for  a  certain  office  which  I  had  been  told  con- 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  LOST  D1GAMMA        27 

trolled  its  affairs.  The  third  policeman  had  heard  of 
it  and  sent  me  off  with  directions.  Presently  I  went 
through  an  obscure  doorway,  traversed  a  mean  hall 
with  a  dirty  gas-jet  at  the  turn  and  came  before  a 
wicket.  A  dark  man  with  the  blood  of  a  Spanish 
inquisitor  asked  my  business.  I  told  him  I  was  a  poor 
student,  without  taint  or  heresy,  who  sought  knowl 
edge.  He  stroked  his  chin  as  though  it  were  a 
monstrous  improbability.  He  looked  me  up  and 
down,  but  this  might  have  been  merely  a  secular  in 
quiry  on  the  chance  that  I  carried  explosives.  He 
then  dipped  his  pen  in  an  ancient  well  (it  was  from 
such  a  dusty  fount  that  the  warrant  for  Saint  Barthol 
omew  went  forth),  then  bidding  me  be  careful  in  my 
answers,  he  cocked  his  head  and  shut  his  less  sus 
picious  eye  lest  it  yield  to  mercy. 

He  asked  my  name  in  full,  middle  name  and  all — 
as  though  villainy  might  lurk  in  an  initial — my  hotel, 
my  length  of  stay  in  London,  my  residence  in 
America,  my  occupation,  the  titles  of  the  books  I 
sought.  When  he  had  done,  I  offered  him  my  age 
and  my  weakness  for  French  pastry,  in  order  that 
material  for  a  monograph  might  be  at  hand  if  at  last 
I  came  to  fame,  but  he  silenced  me  with  his  cold  eye. 
He  now  thrust  a  pamphlet  in  my  hands,  and  told  me 
to  sit  alongside  and  read  it.  It  contained  the  rules 
that  govern  the  use  of  the  Reading  Room.  It  was 
eight  pages  long,  and  intolerably  dry,  and  towards 
the  end  I  nodded.  Awaking  with  a  start,  I  was  about 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


to  hold  up  my  hands  for  the  adjustment  of  the  thumb 
screws — for  I  had  fallen  on  a  nightmare — when  he 
softened.  The  Imperial  Government  was  now  pleased 
to  admit  me  to  the  Reading  Room  for  such  knowl 
edge  as  might  lie  in  my  capacity. 

The  Reading  Room  is  used  chiefly  by  authors, 
gray  fellows  mostly,  dried  and  wrinkled  scholars  who 
come  here  to  pilfer  innocently  from  antiquity. 
Among  these  musty  memorial  shelves,  if  anywhere, 
it  would  seem  that  the  dusty  padding  feet  of  the  lost 
digamma  might  be  heard.  In  this  room,  perhaps, 
Christian  Mentzelius  was  at  work  when  he  heard  the 
book-worm  flap  its  wings. 

Here  sit  the  scholars  at  great  desks  with  ingenious 
shelves  and  racks,  and  they  write  all  day  and  copy 
excerpts  from  the  older  authors.  If  one  of  them 
hesitates  and  seems  to  chew  upon  his  pencil,  it  is  but 
indecision  whether  Hume  or  Buckle  will  weigh 
heavier  on  his  page.  Or  if  one  of  them  looks  up 
from  his  desk  in  a  blurred  near-sighted  manner,  it  is 
because  his  eyes  have  been  so  stretched  upon  the  dis 
tant  centuries,  that  they  can  hardly  focus  on  a  room. 
If  a  scholar  chances  to  sneeze  because  of  the  infection, 
let  it  be  his  consolation  that  the  dust  arises  from  the 
most  ancient  and  respected  authors!  Pages  move 
silently  about  with  tall  dingy  tomes  in  their  arms. 
Other  tomes,  whose  use  is  past,  they  bear  off  to  the 
shades  below. 

I  am  told  that  once  in  a  long  time  a  student  of 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  LOST  DIGAMMA        29 

fresher  complexion  gets  in — a  novitiate  with  the  first 
scholastic  down  upon  his  cheek — a  tender  stripling 
on  his  first  high  quest — a  broth  of  a  boy  barely  off  his 
primer — but  no  sooner  is  he  set  than  he  feels  unpleas 
antly  conspicuous  among  his  elders.  Most  of  these 
youth  bolt,  offering  to  the  doorman  as  a  pretext  some 
neglect — a  forgotten  mission  at  a  book-stall — an 
errand  with  a  tailor.  Even  those  few  who  remain 
because  of  the  greater  passion  for  their  studies,  find 
it  to  their  comfort  to  break  their  condition.  Either 
they  put  on  glasses  or  they  affect  a  limp.  I  know  one 
persistent  youth  who  was  so  consumed  with  desire 
for  history,  yet  so  modest  against  exposure,  that  he 
bargained  with  a  beggar  for  his  crutch.  It  was,  how 
ever,  the  rascal's  only  livelihood.  This  crutch  and 
his  piteous  whimper  had  worked  so  profitably  on  the 
crowd  that,  in  consequence,  its  price  fell  beyond  the 
student's  purse.  My  friend,  therefore,  practiced  a 
palsy  until,  being  perfect  in  the  part,  he  could  take 
his  seat  without  notice  or  embarrassment.  Alas,  the 
need  of  these  pretenses  is  short.  Such  is  the  contagion 
of  the  place — a  breath  from  Egypt  comes  up  from  the 
lower  stacks — that  a  youth's  appearance,  like  a  dyer's 
hand,  is  soon  subdued  to  what  it  works  in.  In  a 
month  or  so  a  general  dust  has  settled  on  him.  Too 
often  learning  is  a  Rip  Van  Winkle's  flagon. 

On  a  rare  occasion  I  have  myself  been  a  student, 
and  have  plied  my  book  with  diligence.  Not  long 
ago  I  spent  a  week  of  agreeable  days  reading  the 


30  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

many  versions  of  Shakespeare  that  were  played  from 
the  Restoration  through  the  eighteenth  century. 
They  are  well  known  to  scholars,  but  the  general 
reader  is  perhaps  unfamiliar  how  Shakespeare  was 
perverted.  From  this  material  I  thought  that  I  might 
lay  out  an  instructive  paper;  how,  for  example,  the 
whirling  passion  of  Lear  was  once  wrought  to  soft 
and  pleasant  uses  for  a  holiday.  Cordelia  is  rescued 
from  the  villains  by  the  hero  Kent,  who  cries  out  in 
a  transport,  "Come  to  my  arms,  thou  loveliest,  best 
of  women!"  The  scene  is  laid  in  the  woods,  but  as 
night  comes  on,  Cordelia's  old  nurse  appears.  A 
scandal  is  averted.  Whereupon  Kent  marries  Cor 
delia,  and  they  reign  happily  ever  afterward.  As 
for  Lear,  he  advances  into  a  gentle  convalescence. 
Before  the  week  is  out  he  will  be  sunning  himself  on 
the  bench  beneath  his  pear  tree  and  babbling  of  his 
early  days. 

There  were  extra  witches  in  Macbeth.  Romeo  and 
Juliet  lived  and  the  quarreling  families  were  united. 
Desdemona  remained  un-smothered  to  the  end. 
There  was  one  stout  author — but  here  I  trust  to 
memory — who  even  attempted  to  rescue  Hamlet  and 
to  substitute  for  the  distant  rolling  of  the  drum  of 
Fortinbras,  the  pipes  and  timbrels  of  his  happy  wed 
ding.  There  is  yet  to  be  made  a  lively  paper  of  these 
Shakespeare  tinkers  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

And  then  John  Timbs  was  to  have  been  my  text, 
who  was  an  antiquary  of  the  nineteenth  century.  I 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  LOST  DIGAMMA        31 

had  come  frequently  on  his  books.  They  are  seldom 
found  in  first-hand  shops.  More  appropriately  they 
are  offered  where  the  older  books  are  sold — where 
there  are  racks  before  the  door  for  the  rakings  of  the 
place,  and  inside  an  ancient  smell  of  leather.  If  there 
are  barrels  in  the  basement,  stocked  and  overflowing, 
it  is  sure  that  a  volume  of  Timbs  is  upon  the  premises. 

I  visited  the  Public  Library  and  asked  a  sharp- 
nosed  person  how  I  might  best  learn  about  John 
Timbs.  I  followed  the  direction  of  his  wagging 
thumb.  The  accounts  of  the  encyclopedias  are 
meager,  a  date  of  birth  and  of  death,  a  few  facts  of 
residence,  the  titles  of  his  hundred  and  fifty  books, 
and  little  more.  Some  neglect  him  entirely;  skipping 
lightly  from  Timbrel  to  Timbuctoo.  Indeed,  Tim- 
buctoo  turned  up  so  often  that  even  against  my  inten 
tion  I  came  to  a  knowledge  of  the  place.  It  lies 
against  the  desert  and  exports  ostrich  feathers,  gums, 
salts  and  kola-nuts.  Nor  are  timbrels  to  be  scorned. 
They  were  used — I  quote  precisely — "by  David  when 
he  danced  before  the  ark."  Surely  not  Noah's  ark! 
I  must  brush  up  on  David. 

Timbs  is  matter  for  an  engaging  paper.  His  pas 
sion  was  London.  He  had  a  fling  at  other  subjects — 
a  dozen  books  or  so — but  his  graver  hours  were  given 
to  the  study  of  London.  There  is  hardly  a  park  or 
square  or  street,  palace,  theatre  or  tavern  that  did  not 
yield  its  secret  to  him.  Here  and  there  an  upstart 
building,  too  new  for  legend,  may  have  had  no  gossip 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


for  him,  but  all  others  John  Timbs  knew,  and  the 
personages  who  lived  in  them.  And  he  knew  whether 
they  were  of  sour  temper,  whether  they  were  rich  or 
poor,  and  if  poor,  what  shifts  and  pretenses  they 
practiced.  He  knew  the  windows  of  the  town  where 
the  beaux  commonly  ogled  the  passing  beauties.  He 
knew  the  chatter  of  the  theatres  and  of  society.  He 
traced  the  walls  of  the  old  city,  and  explored  the 
lanes.  Unless  I  am  much  mistaken,  there  is  not  a 
fellow  of  the  Dunciad  to  whom  he  has  not  assigned  a 
house.  Nor  is  any  man  of  deeper  knowledge  of  the 
clubs  and  coffee-houses  and  taverns.  One  would  say 
that  he  had  sat  at  Will's  with  Dryden,  and  that  he 
had  gone  to  Button's  arm  in  arm  with  Addison. 
Did  Goldsmith  journey  to  his  tailor  for  a  plum- 
colored  suit,  you  may  be  sure  that  Timbs  tagged  him 
at  the  elbow.  If  Sam  Johnson  sat  at  the  Mitre  or 
Marlowe  caroused  in  Deptford,  Timbs  was  of  the 
company.  There  has  scarcely  been  a  play  acted  in 
London  since  the  days  of  Burbage  which  Timbs  did 
not  chronicle. 

But  presently  I  gave  up  the  study  of  John  Timbs. 
Although  I  had  accumulated  interesting  facts  about 
him,  and  had  got  so  far  as  to  lay  out  several  amusing 
paragraphs,  still  I  could  not  fit  them  together  to  an 
agreeable  result.  It  was  as  though  I  could  blow  a 
melodious  C  upon  a  horn,  and  lower  down,  after 
preparation,  a  dulcet  G,  but  failed  to  make  a  tune  of 
them. 


THE  QUEST  OF  THE  LOST  DIG  AM  MA        33 

But  although  my  studies  so  far  have  been  unsuc 
cessful,  doubtless  I  shall  persist.  Even  now  I  have 
several  topics  in  mind  that  may  yet  serve  for  pleasant 
papers.  If  I  fail,  it  will  be  my  comfort  that  others 
far  better  than  myself  achieve  but  a  half  success. 
Although  the  digamma  escapes  our  salt,  somewhere 
he  lurks  on  the  lonely  mountains.  And  often  when 
our  lamps  burn  late,  we  fancy  that  we  catch  a  waving 
of  his  tail  and  hear  him  padding  across  the  night. 
But  although  we  lash  ourselves  upon  the  chase  and 
strain  forward  in  the  dark,  the  timid  beast  runs  on 
swifter  feet  and  scampers  off. 


On  a  Rainy  Morning. 

A  NORTHEASTER  blew  up  last  night  and 
this  morning  we  are  lashed  by  wind  and  rain. 
M foretold  the  change  yesterday  when 

we  rode  upon  a  'bus  top  at  nightfall.  It  was  then 
pleasant  enough  and  to  my  eye  all  was  right  aloft. 
I  am  not,  however,  weather-wise.  I  must  feel  the 
first  patter  of  the  storm  before  I  hazard  a  judgment. 
To  learn  even  the  quarter  of  a  breeze — unless  there 
is  a  trail  of  smoke  to  guide  me — I  must  hold  up  a  wet 
finger.  In  my  ignorance  clouds  sail  across  the  heav 
ens  on  a  whim.  Like  white  sheep  they  wander  here 
and  there  for  forage,  and  my  suspicion  of  bad  weather 
comes  only  when  the  tempest  has  whipped  them  to  a 
gallop.  Even  a  band  around  the  moon — which  I  am 
told  is  primary  instruction  on  the  coming  of  a  storm — 
stirs  me  chiefly  by  its  deeper  mystery,  as  if  astrology, 
come  in  from  the  distant  stars,  lifts  here  a  warning 

finger.    But  M was  brought  up  beside  the  sea, 

and  she  has  a  sailor's  instinct  for  the  weather.  At  the 
first  preliminary  shifting  of  the  heavens,  too  slight 
for  my  coarser  senses,  she  will  tilt  her  nose  and  look 
around,  then  pronounce  the  coming  of  a  storm.  To 
her,  therefore,  I  leave  all  questions  of  umbrellas  and 
raincoats,  and  on  her  decision  we  go  abroad. 

Last  night  when  I  awoke  I  knew  that  her  prophecy 


86  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

was  right  again,  for  the  rain  was  blowing  in  my  face 
and  slashing  on  the  upper  window.  The  wind,  too, 
was  whistling  along  the  roofs,  with  a  try  at  chimney 
pots  and  spouts.  It  was  the  wolf  in  the  fairy  story 
who  said  he'd  huff  and  he'd  puff,  and  he'd  blow  in 
the  house  where  the  little  pig  lived;  yet  tonight  his 
humor  was  less  savage.  Down  below  I  heard  ash- 
cans  toppling  over  all  along  the  street  and  rolling  to 
the  gutters.  It  lacks  a  few  nights  of  Hallowe'en,  but 
doubtless  the  wind's  calendar  is  awry  and  he  is  out 
already  with  his  mischief.  When  a  window  rattles 
at  this  season,  it  is  the  tick-tack  of  his  roguish  finger. 
If  a  chimney  is  overthrown,  it  is  his  jest.  Tomorrow 
we  shall  find  a  broken  shutter  as  his  rowdy  celebration 
of  the  night. 

This  morning  is  by  general  agreement  a  nasty  day. 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  assent.  If  I  were  the  old  woman 
at  the  corner  who  sells  newspapers  from  a  stand,  I 
would  not  like  the  weather,  for  the  pent  roof  drops 
water  on  her  stock.  Scarcely  is  the  peppermint  safe 
beyond  the  splatter.  Nor  is  it,  I  fancy,  a  profitable 
day  for  a  street-organ  man,  who  requires  a  sunny 
morning  with  open  windows  for  a  rush  of  business. 
Nor  is  there  any  good  reason  why  a  house-painter 
should  be  delighted  with  this  blustering  sky,  unless 
he  is  an  idle  fellow  who  seeks  an  excuse  to  lie  in  bed. 
But  except  in  sympathy,  why  is  our  elevator  boy  so 
fiercely  disposed  against  the  weather?  His  cage  is 
snug  as  long  as  the  skylight  holds.  And  why  should 


ON  A  RAINY  MORNING  87 

the  warm  dry  noses  of  the  city,  pressed  against  ten 
thousand  windows  up  and  down  the  streets,  be  flat 
and  sour  this  morning  with  disapproval? 

It  may  savor  of  bravado  to  find  pleasure  in  what 
is  so  commonly  condemned.  Here  is  a  smart  fellow, 
you  may  say,  who  sets  up  a  paradox — a  conceited 
braggart  who  professes  a  difference  to  mankind.  Or 
worse,  it  may  appear  that  I  try  my  hand  at  writing 
in  a  "happy  vein."  God  forbid  that  I  should  be  such 
a  villain!  For  I  once  knew  a  man  who,  by  reading 
these  happy  books,  fell  into  pessimism  and  a  sharp 
decline.  He  had  wasted  to  a  peevish  shadow  and  had 
taken  to  his  bed  before  his  physician  discovered  the 
seat  of  his  anaemia.  It  was  only  by  cutting  the  evil 
dose,  chapter  by  chapter,  that  he  finally  restored  him 
to  his  friends.  Yet  neither  supposition  of  my  case 
is  true.  We  who  enjoy  wet  and  windy  days  are  of 
a  considerable  number,  and  if  our  voices  are  seldom 
heard  in  public  dispute,  it  is  because  we  are  overcome 
by  the  growling  majority.  You  may  know  us,  how 
ever,  by  our  stout  boots,  the  kind  of  battered  hats  we 
wear,  and  our  disregard  of  puddles.  To  our  eyes 
alone,  the  rain  swirls  along  the  pavements  like  the 
mad  rush  of  sixteenth  notes  upon  a  music  staff.  And 
to  our  ears  alone,  the  wind  sings  the  rattling  tune 
recorded. 

Certainly  there  is  more  comedy  on  the  streets  on 
a  wet  and  windy  day  than  there  is  under  a  fair  sky. 
Thin  folk  hold  on  at  corners.  Fat  folk  waddle  before 


38  CHIMNEY -POT  PAPERS 

the  wind,  their  racing  elbows  wing  and  wing.  Hats 
are  whisked  off  and  sail  down  the  gutters  on  excited 
purposes  of  their  own.  It  was  only  this  morning  that 
I  saw  an  artistocratic  silk  hat  bobbing  along  the  pave 
ment  in  familiar  company  with  a  stranger  bonnet — 
surely  a  misalliance,  for  the  bonnet  was  a  shabby  one. 
But  in  the  wind,  despite  the  difference  of  social 
station,  an  instant  affinity  had  been  established  and 
an  elopement  was  under  way. 

Persons  with  umbrellas  clamp  them  down  close 
upon  their  heads  and  proceed  blindly  like  the  larger 
and  more  reckless  crabs  that  you  see  in  aquariums. 
Nor  can  we  know  until  now  what  spirit  for  adventure 
resides  in  an  umbrella.  Hitherto  it  has  stood  in  a 
Chinese  vase  beneath  the  stairs  and  has  seemed  a  list 
less  creature.  But  when  a  November  wind  is  up  it 
is  a  cousin  of  the  balloon,  with  an  equal  zest  to  explore 
the  wider  precincts  of  the  earth  and  to  alight  upon 
the  moon.  Only  persons  of  heavier  ballast — such  as 
have  been  fed  on  sweets — plump  pancake  persons — 
can  hold  now  an  umbrella  to  the  ground.  A  long 
stowage  of  muffins  and  sugar  is  the  only  anchor. 

At  this  moment  beneath  my  window  there  is  a  dear 
little  girl  who  brings  home  a  package  from  the 
grocer's.  She  is  tugged  and  blown  by  her  umbrella, 
and  at  every  puff  of  wind  she  goes  up  on  tiptoe.  If 
I  were  writing  a  fairy  tale  I  would  make  her  the 
Princess  of  my  plot,  and  I  would  transport  her 
underneath  her  umbrella  in  this  whisking  wind  to  her 


ON  A  RAINY  MORNING  39 

far  adventures,  just  as  Davy  sailed  off  to  the  land  of 
Goblins  inside  his  grandfather's  clock.  She  would 
be  carried  over  seas,  until  she  could  sniff  the  spice 
winds  of  the  south.  Then  she  would  be  set  down  in 
the  orchard  of  the  Golden  Prince,  who  presently 
would  spy  her  from  his  window — a  mite  of  a  pretty 
girl,  all  mussed  and  blown  about.  And  then  I  would 
spin  out  the  tale  to  its  true  and  happy  end,  and  they 
would  live  together  ever  after.  How  she  labors  at 
the  turn,  hugging  her  paper  bag  and  holding  her 
flying  skirts  against  her  knees!  An  umbrella,  how 
ever,  usually  turns  inside  out  before  it  gets  you  off 
the  pavement,  and  then  it  looks  like  a  wrecked  Zeppe 
lin.  You  put  it  in  the  first  ash-can,  and  walk  off  in 
an  attempt  not  to  be  conspicuous. 

Although  the  man  who  pursues  his  hat  is,  in  some 
sort,  conscious  that  he  plays  a  comic  part,  and  al 
though  there  is  a  pleasing  relish  on  the  curb  at  his 
discomfort,  yet  it  must  not  be  assumed  that  all  the 
humor  on  the  street  rises  from  misadventure.  Rather, 
it  arises  from  a  general  acceptance  of  the  day  and  a 
feeling  of  common  partnership  in  the  storm.  The 
policeman  in  his  rubber  coat  exchanges  banter  with 
a  cab-driver.  If  there  is  a  tangle  in  the  traffic,  it 
comes  nearer  to  a  jest  than  on  a  fairer  day.  A  team 
ster  sitting  dry  inside  his  hood,  whistles  so  cheerily 
that  he  can  be  heard  at  the  farther  sidewalk.  Good- 
naturedly  he  sets  his  tune  as  a  rival  to  the  wind. 

It  must  be  that  only  good-tempered  persons  are 


40  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

abroad — those  whose  humor  endures  and  likes  the 
storm — and  that  when  the  swift  dark  clouds  drove 
across  the  world,  all  sullen  folk  scurried  for  a  roof. 
And  is  it  not  wise,  now  and  then,  that  folk  be  thus 
parceled  with  their  kind?  Must  we  wait  for  Gabriel's 
Trump  for  our  division?  I  have  been  told — but  the 
story  seems  incredible — that  that  seemingly  cursed 
thing,  the  Customs'  Wharf,  was  established  not  so 
much  for  our  nation's  profit  as  in  acceptance  of  some 
such  general  theory — in  a  word,  that  all  sour  persons 
might  be  housed  together  for  their  employment  and 
society  be  rid  of  them.  It  is  by  an  extension  of  this 
obscure  but  beneficent  division  that  only  those  of 
better  nature  go  abroad  on  these  blustering  November 
days. 

There  are  many  persons,  of  course,  who  like  sum 
mer  rains  and  boast  of  their  liking.  This  is  nothing. 
One  might  as  well  boast  of  his  appetite  for  toasted 
cheese.  Does  one  pin  himself  with  badges  if  he  plies 
an  enthusiastic  spoon  in  an  ice-cream  dish?  Or  was 
the  love  of  sack  ever  a  virtue,  and  has  Falstaff  become 
a  saint?  If  he  now  sing  in  the  Upper  Choir,  the 
bench  must  sag.  But  persons  of  this  turn  of  argu 
ment  make  a  point  of  their  willingness  to  walk  out 
in  a  June  rain.  They  think  it  a  merit  to  go  tripping 
across  the  damp  grass  to  inspect  their  gardens. 
Toasted  cheese!  Of  course  they  like  it.  Who  could 
help  it?  This  is  no  proof  of  merit.  Such  folk,  at 
best,  are  but  sisters  in  the  brotherhood. 


ON  A  RAINY  MORNING 


And  yet  a  November  rain  is  but  an  August  rain 
that  has  grown  a  beard  and  taken  on  the  stalwart 
manners  of  the  world.  And  the  November  wind, 
which  piped  madrigals  in  June  and  lazy  melodies  all 
the  summer,  has  done  no  more  than  learn  brisker 
braver  tunes  to  befit  the  coming  winter.  If  the  wind 
tugs  at  your  coat-tails,  it  only  seeks  a  companion  for 
its  games.  It  goes  forth  whistling  for  honest  cele 
bration,  and  who  shall  begrudge  it  here  and  there  a 
chimney  if  it  topple  it  in  sport? 

Despite  this,  rainy  weather  has  a  bad  name.  So 
general  is  its  evil  reputation  that  from  of  old  one  of 
the  lowest  circles  of  Hell  has  been  plagued  with  raw 
winds  and  covered  thick  with  ooze  —  a  testament  to 
our  northern  March  —  and  in  this  villains  were  set 
shivering  to  their  chins.  But  the  beginning  of  the 
distaste  for  rainy  weather  may  be  traced  to  Noah. 
Certain  it  is  that  toward  the  end  of  his  cruise,  when 
the  passengers  were  already  chafing  with  the  ani 
mals  —  the  kangaroos,  in  particular,  it  is  said,  played 
leap-frog  in  the  hold  and  disturbed  the  skipper's 
sleep  —  certain  it  is  while  the  heavens  were  still  over 
cast  that  Noah  each  morning  put  his  head  anxiously 
up  through  the  forward  hatch  for  a  change  of  sky. 
There  was  rejoicing  from  stem  to  stern  —  so  runs  the 
legend  —  when  at  last  his  old  white  beard,  shifting 
from  west  to  east,  gave  promise  of  a  clearing  wind. 
But  from  that  day  to  this,  as  is  natural,  there  has 
persisted  a  stout  prejudice  against  wind  and  rain. 


48  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

But  this  is  not  just.  If  a  rainy  day  lacks  sun 
shine,  it  has  vigor  for  a  substitute.  The  wind  whistles 
briskly  among  the  chimney  tops.  There  is  so  much 
life  on  wet  and  windy  days.  Yesterday  Nature 
yawned,  but  today  she  is  wide  awake.  Yesterday  the 
earth  seemed  lolling  idly  in  the  heavens.  It  was  a 
time  of  celestial  vacation  and  all  the  suns  and  moons 
were  vacant  of  their  usual  purpose.  But  today  the 
earth  whirls  and  spins  through  space.  Her  gray 
cloud  cap  is  pulled  down  across  her  nose  and  she  leans 
in  her  hurry  against  the  storm.  The  heavens  have 
piped  the  planets  to  their  work. 

Yesterday  the  smoke  of  chimneys  drifted  up  with 
tired  content  from  lazy  roofs,  but  today  the  smoke 
is  stretched  and  torn  like  a  triumphant  banner  of  the 
storm. 


4  4 


1917." 


I  DREAMED  last  night  a  fearful  dream  and  this 
morning  even  the  familiar  contact  of  the  subway 
has  been  unable  to  shake  it  from  me. 
I  know  of  few  things  that  are  so  momentarily 
tragical  as  awakening  from  a  frightful  dream.    Even 
if  you  know  with  returning  consciousness  that  it  was 
a  dream,  it  seems  as  if  a  part  of  it  must  have  a  basis 
in  fact.    The  death  that  was  recorded — is  it  true  or 
not?    And  in  your  mind  you  grope  among  the  famil 
iar  landmarks  of  your  recollection  to  discover  where 
the  true  and  the  fictitious  join. 

But  this  dream  of  last  night  was  so  vivid  that  this 
morning  I  cannot  shake  it  from  me. 

I  dreamed — ridiculously  enough — that  the  whole 
world  was  at  war,  and  that  big  and  little  nations  were 
fighting. 

In  my  dream  the  round  earth  hung  before  me 


44  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

against  the  background  of  the  night,  and  red  flames 
shot  from  every  part. 

I  heard  cries  of  anguish — men  blinded  by  gases 
and  crazed  by  suffering.  I  saw  women  dressed  in 
black — a  long  procession  stretching  hideously  from 
mist  to  mist — walking  with  erect  heads,  dry-eyed,  for 
grief  had  starved  them  of  tears.  I  saw  ships  sinking 
and  a  thousand  arms  raised  for  a  moment  above  the 
waves.  I  saw  children  lying  dead  among  their  toys. 

And  I  saw  boys  throw  down  their  books  and  tools 
and  go  off  with  glad  cries,  and  men  I  saw,  grown 
gray  with  despair,  staggering  under  heavy  weights. 

There  were  millions  of  dead  upon  the  earth  that 
hung  before  me,  and  I  smelled  the  battlefield. 

And  I  beheld  one  man — one  hundred  men — secure 
in  an  outlawed  country — who  looked  from  far  win 
dows—men  bitter  with  disappointment — men  who 
blasphemed  of  God,  while  their  victims  rotted  in 
Flanders. 

And  in  my  dream  it  seemed  that  I  did  not  have  a 
sword,  but  that  I,  too,  looked  upon  the  battle  from 
a  place  where  there  were  no  flames.  I  ran  little 
errands  for  the  war. 

There  is  the  familiar  window — that  dull  outline 
across  the  room.  Here  is  the  accustomed  door.  The 
bed  is  set  between.  It  was  but  a  dream  after  all.  And 
yet  how  it  has  shaken  me ! 

Of  course  the  dream  was  absurd.     No  man — no 


"1917"  45 

nation  certainly — could  be  so  mad.  The  whole  whirl 
ing  earth  could  not  burn  with  fire.  Until  the  final 
trumpet,  no  such  calamity  is  possible.  Thank  God, 
it  was  but  a  dream,  and  I  can  continue  today  my 
peaceful  occupation. 

Calico,  I'm  told,  is  going  up.    I  must  protect  our 
contracts. 


On  Going  Afoot. 


THERE  is  a  tale  that  somewhere  in  the  world 
there  is  a  merry  river  that  dances  as  often  as 
it  hears  sweet  music.  The  tale  is  not  precise 
whether  this  river  is  neighbor  to  us  or  is  a  stream  of 
the  older  world.  "It  dances  at  the  noise  of  musick," 
so  runs  the  legend,  "for  with  musick  it  bubbles,  dances 
and  grows  sandy."  This  tale  may  be  the  conceit  of 
one  of  those  older  poets  whose  verses  celebrate  the 
morning  and  the  freshness  of  the  earth — Thomas 
Heywood  could  have  written  it  or  even  the  least  of 
those  poets  who  sat  their  evenings  at  the  Mermaid — 
or  the  tale  may  arise  more  remotely  from  an  old  wor 
ship  of  the  god  Pan,  who  is  said  to  have  piped  along 
the  streams.  I  offer  my  credence  to  the  earlier  origin 
as  the  more  pleasing.  And  therefore  on  a  country 
walk  I  observe  the  streams  if  by  chance  any  of  them 
shall  fit  the  tale.  Not  yet  have  I  seen  Pan  puffing  his 
cheeks  with  melody  on  a  streamside  bank — by  ill  luck 
I  squint  short-sightedly — but  I  often  hear  melodies 
of  such  woodsy  composition  that  surely  they  must 
issue  from  his  pipe.  The  stream  leaps  gaily  across 
the  shallows  that  glitter  with  sunlight,  and  I  am 
tempted  to  the  agreeable  suspicion  that  I  have  hit 
upon  the  very  stream  of  the  legend  and  that  the  god 
Pan  sits  hard  by  in  the  thicket  and  beats  his  shaggy 


48  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

hoof  in  rhythm.  It  is  his  song  that  the  wind  sings  in 
the  trees.  If  a  bird  sings  in  the  meadow  its  tune  is 
pitched  to  Pan's  reedy  obligato. 

Whether  or  not  this  is  true,  I  confess  to  a  love  of 
a  stream.  This  may  be  merely  an  anaemic  love  of 
beauty,  such  as  is  commonly  bred  in  townsfolk  on  a 
holiday,  or  it  may  descend  from  braver  ancestors  who 
once  were  anglers  and  played  truant  with  hook  and 
line.  You  may  recall  that  the  milk-women  of  Kent 
told  Piscator  when  he  came  at  the  end  of  his  day's 
fishing  to  beg  a  cup  of  red  cow's  milk,  that  anglers 
were  "honest,  civil,  quiet  men."  I  have,  also,  a  habit 
of  contemplation,  which  I  am  told  is  proper  to  an 
angler.  I  can  lean  longer  than  most  across  the  railing 
of  a  country  bridge  if  the  water  runs  noisily  on  the 
stones.  If  I  chance  to  come  off  a  dusty  road — unless 
hunger  stirs  me  to  an  inn — I  can  listen  for  an  hour, 
for  of  all  sounds  it  is  the  most  musical.  When  earth 
and  air  and  water  play  in  concert,  which  are  the 
master  musicians  this  side  of  the  moon,  surely  their 
harmony  rises  above  the  music  of  the  stars. 

In  a  more  familiar  mood  I  throw  stepping  stones 
in  the  water  to  hear  them  splash,  or  I  cram  them  in 
a  dam  to  thwart  the  purpose  of  the  stream,  laying 
ever  a  higher  stone  when  the  water  laps  the  top.  I 
scoop  out  the  sand  and  stones  as  if  a  mighty  shipping 
begged  for  passage.  Or  I  rest  from  this  prodigious 
engineering  upon  my  back  and  watch  the  white  traffic 
of  the  clouds  across  the  summer  sky.  The  roots  of 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  49 

an  antique  oak  peep  upon  the  flood  as  in  the  golden 
days  of  Arden.  Apple  blossoms  fall  upon  the  water 
like  the  snow  of  a  more  kindly  winter.  A  gay  leaf 
puts  out  upon  the  channel  like  a  painted  galleon  for 
far  adventure.  A  twig  sails  off  freighted  with  my 
drowsy  thoughts.  A  branch  of  a  willow  dips  in  the 
stream  and  writes  an  endless  trail  of  words  in  the 
running  water.  In  these  evil  days  when  the  whole 
fair  world  is  trenched  and  bruised  with  war,  what 
wisdom  does  it  send  to  the  valleys  where  men  reside — 
what  love  and  peace  and  gentleness — what  promise 
of  better  days  to  come — that  it  makes  this  eternal 
stream  its  messenger ! 

And  yet  a  stream  is  best  if  it  is  but  an  incident  in 
travel — if  it  break  the  dusty  afternoon  and  send  one 
off  refreshed.  Rather  than  a  place  for  fishing  it 
invites  one  to  bathe  his  feet.  There  are,  indeed, 
persons  so  careful  of  their  health  as  to  assert  that  cold 
water  endangers  blisters.  Theirs  is  a  prudence  to  be 
neglected.  Such  persons  had  better  leave  their  feet 
at  home  safely  slippered  on  the  fender.  If  one's  feet 
go  upon  a  holiday,  is  it  fair  that  for  fear  of  conse 
quence  they  be  kept  housed  in  their  shoes?  Shall  the 
toes  sit  inside  their  battered  caravans  while  the  legs 
and  arms  frisk  outside?  Is  there  such  torture  in  a 
blister — even  if  the  prevention  be  sure — to  outweigh 
the  pleasure  of  cold  water  running  across  the  ankles? 

It  was  but  lately  that  I  followed  a  road  that  lay  off 
the  general  travel  through  a  pleasant  country  of  hills 


60  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

and  streams.  As  the  road  was  not  a  thoroughfare 
and  journeyed  no  farther  than  the  near-by  town 
where  I  was  to  get  my  supper,  it  went  at  a  lazy  wind 
ing  pace.  If  a  dog  barked  it  was  in  sleepy  fashion. 
He  yelped  merely  to  check  his  loneliness.  There 
could  be  no  venom  on  his  drowsy  tooth.  The  very 
cows  that  fed  along  its  fences  were  of  a  slower  breed 
and  more  contemplative  whisk  of  tail  than  are  found 
upon  the  thoroughfares.  Sheep  patched  the  fields 
with  gray  and  followed  their  sleepy  banquet  across 
the  hills. 

The  country  was  laid  out  with  farms — orchards 
and  soft  fields  of  grain  that  waved  like  a  golden 
lake — but  there  were  few  farmhouses.  In  all  the 
afternoon  I  passed  but  one  person,  a  deaf  man  who 
asked  for  direction.  When  I  cried  out  that  I  was  a 
stranger,  he  held  his  hand  to  his  ear,  but  his  mouth 
fell  open  as  if  my  words,  denied  by  deafness  from  a 
proper  portal,  were  offered  here  a  service  entrance. 
I  spread  my  map  before  him  and  he  put  an  ample 
thumb  upon  it.  Then  inquiring  whether  I  had 
crossed  a  road  with  a  red  house  upon  it  where  his 
friend  resided,  he  thanked  me  and  walked  off  with 
such  speed  as  his  years  had  left  him.  Birds  sang 
delightfully  on  the  fences  and  in  the  field,  yet  I  knew 
not  their  names.  Shall  one  not  enjoy  a  symphony 
without  precise  knowledge  of  the  instrument  that 
gives  the  tune?  If  an  oboe  sound  a  melody,  must  one 
bestow  a  special  praise,  with  a  knowledge  of  its  func- 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  51 

tion  in  the  concert?  Or  if  a  trombone  please,  must 
one  know  the  brassy  creature  by  its  name?  Rather, 
whether  I  listen  to  horns  or  birds,  in  my  ignorance  I 
bestow  loosely  a  general  approbation;  yet  is  the  song 
sweet. 

All  afternoon  I  walked  with  the  sound  of  wind  and 
water  in  my  ears,  and  at  night,  when  I  had  gained  my 
journey's  end  and  lay  in  bed,  I  heard  beneath  my 
window  in  the  garden  the  music  of  a  little  runnel  that 
was  like  a  faint  and  pleasant  echo  of  my  hillside  walk. 
I  fell  asleep  to  its  soothing  sound  and  its  trickle  made 
a  pattern  across  my  dreams. 

But  perhaps  you  yourself,  my  dear  sir,  are  addicted 
to  these  country  walks,  either  for  an  afternoon  or  for 
a  week's  duration  with  a  rucksack  strapped  across 
your  back.  If  denied  the  longer  outing,  I  hope  that 
at  least  it  is  your  custom  to  go  forth  upon  a  holiday 
to  look  upon  the  larger  earth.  Where  the  road  most 
winds  and  dips  and  the  distance  is  of  the  finer  purple, 
let  that  direction  be  your  choice!  Seek  out  the  region 
of  the  hills!  Outposts  and  valleys  here,  with  smoke 
of  suppers  rising.  Trains  are  so  small  that  a  child 
might  draw  them  with  a  string.  Far-off  hills  are 
tumbled  and  in  confusion,  as  if  a  giant  were  roused 
and  had  flung  his  rumpled  cloak  upon  the  plain. 

Or  if  a  road  and  a  stream  seem  close  companions, 
tag  along  with  them!  Like  three  cronies  you  may 
work  the  countryside  together!  There  are  old  mills 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


with  dams  and  mossy  water  wheels,  and  rumbling 
covered  bridges. 

But  chiefly  I  beg  that  you  wander  out  at  random 
without  too  precise  knowledge  of  where  you  go  or 
where  you  shall  get  your  supper.  If  you  are  of  a 
cautious  nature,  as  springs  from  a  delicate  stomach 
or  too  sheltered  life,  you  may  stuff  a  bar  of  chocolate 
in  your  pocket.  Or  an  apple — if  you  shift  your  other 
ballast — will  not  sag  you  beyond  locomotion.  I  have 
known  persons  who  prize  a  tomato  as  offering  both 
food  and  drink,  yet  it  is  too  likely  to  be  damaged  and 
squirt  inside  the  pocket  if  you  rub  against  a  tree. 
Instead,  the  cucumber  is  to  be  commended  for  its 
coolness,  and  a  pickle  is  a  sour  refreshment  that 
should  be  nibbled  in  turn  against  the  chocolate. 

Food  oftentimes  is  to  be  got  upon  the  way.  There 
is  a  kind  of  cocoanut  bar,  flat  and  corrugated,  that 
may  be  had  at  most  crossroads.  I  no  longer  consider 
these  a  delicacy,  but  in  my  memory  I  see  a  boy  bar 
gaining  for  them  at  the  counter.  They  are  counted 
into  his  dirty  palm.  He  stuffs  a  whole  one  in  his 
mouth,  from  ear  to  ear.  His  bicycle  leans  against  the 
trough  outside.  He  mounts,  wabbling  from  side  to 
side  to  reach  the  pedals.  Before  him  lie  the  moun 
tains  of  the  world. 

Nor  shall  I  complain  if  you  hold  roughly  in  your 
mind,  subject  to  a  whim's  reversal,  an  evening  desti 
nation  to  check  your  hunger.  But  do  not  bend  your 
circuit  back  to  the  noisy  city!  Let  your  march  end 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  53 

at  the  inn  of  a  country  town!  If  it  is  but  a  station  on 
your  journey  and  you  continue  on  the  morrow,  let 
there  be  an  ample  porch  and  a  rail  to  rest  your  feet! 
Here  you  may  sit  in  the  comfortable  twilight  when 
crammed  with  food  and  observe  the  town's  small 
traffic.  Country  folk  come  about,  if  you  are  of  easy 
address,  and  engage  you  on  their  crops.  The  village 
prophet  strokes  his  wise  beard  at  your  request  anji. 
squinting  at  the  sky,  foretells  a  storm.  Or  if  the 
night  is  cold,  a  fire  is  laid  inside  and  a  wrinkled  board 
for  the  conduct  of  the  war  debates  upon  the  hearth. 
But  so  far  as  your  infirmity  permits,  go  forth  at 
random  with  a  spirit  for  adventure!  If  the  prospect 
pleases  you  as  the  train  slows  down  for  the  platform, 
cast  a  penny  on  your  knee  and  abide  its  fall ! 

Or  if  on  principle  you  abhor  a  choice  that  is  made 
wickedly  on  the  falling  of  a  coin,  let  an  irrelevant 
circumstance  direct  your  destination!  I  once  walked 
outside  of  London,  making  my  start  at  Dorking  for 
no  other  reason  except  that  Sam  Weller's  mother-in- 
law  had  once  lived  there.  You  will  recall  how  the 
elder  Mr.  Weller  in  the  hour  of  his  affliction  dis 
coursed  on  widows  in  the  taproom  of  the  Marquis 
of  Granby  when  the  funeral  was  done,  and  how  later, 
being  pestered  with  the  Reverend  Mr.  Stiggins,  he 
immersed  him  in  the  horse-trough  to  ease  his  grief. 
All  through  the  town  I  looked  for  red-nosed  men  who 
might  be  descended  from  the  reverend  shepherd, 
and  once  when  I  passed  a  horse-trough  of  uncommon 


54  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

size  I  asked  the  merchant  at  the  corner  if  it  might 
not  be  the  very  place.  I  was  met,  however,  by  such 
a  vacant  stare — for  the  fellow  was  unlettered — that 
to  rouse  him  I  bought  a  cucumber  from  an  open  crate 
against  the  time  of  lunch,  and  I  followed  my  pursuit 
further  in  the  town.  The  cucumber  was  of  monstrous 
length  and  thin.  All  about  the  town  its  end  stuck  out 
of  my  pocket  inquisitively,  as  though  it  were  a  fellow 
traveler  down  from  London  to  see  the  sights.  But 
although  I  inquired  for  the  Weller  family,  it  seems 
that  they  were  dead  and  gone.  Even  the  Marquis  of 
Granby  had  disappeared,  with  its  room  behind  the 
bar  where  Mr.  Stiggins  drank  pineapple  rum  with 
water,  luke,  from  the  kettle  on  the  hob. 

We  left  Dorking  and  walked  all  afternoon  through 
a  pleasant  sunny  country,  up  hill  and  down,  to  the 
town  of  Guildford.  At  four  o'clock,  to  break  the 
journey,  we  laid  out  our  lunch  of  bread  and  cheese 
and  cucumber,  and  rested  for  an  hour.  The  place 
was  a  grassy  bank  along  a  road  above  a  fertile  valley 
where  men  were  pitching  hay.  Their  shouts  were 
carried  across  the  fields  with  an  agreeable  softness. 
Today,  doubtless,  women  work  in  those  fields. 

On  another  occasion  we  walked  from  Maidstone  to 
Rochester  on  pilgrimage  to  the  inn  where  Alfred 
Jingle  borrowed  Mr.  Winkle's  coat  to  attend  the 
Assembly,  when  he  made  love  to  the  buxom  widow. 
War  had  just  been  declared  between  Britain  and 
Germany,  and  soldiers  guarded  the  roads  above  the 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  55 

town.  At  a  tea-room  in  the  outskirts  army  officers 
ate  at  a  neighboring  table.  Later,  it  is  likely,  they 
were  in  the  retreat  from  Mons :  for  the  expeditionary 
force  crossed  the  channel  within  a  week.  Yet  so  does 
farce  march  along  with  tragedy  that  our  chief  con 
cern  in  Rochester  was  the  old  inn  where  the  ball  was 
held. 

A  surly  woman  who  sat  behind  the  cashier's  wicket 
fixed  me  with  her  eye.  "Might  we  visit  the  ball 
room?"  I  inquired.  Evidently  not,  unless  we  were 
stopping  at  the  house.  "Madame,"  I  said,  "perhaps 
you  are  unaware  that  the  immortal  Mr.  Pickwick 
once  sojourned  beneath  your  roof."  There  was  no 
response.  "The  celebrated  Mr.  Pickwick,  G.  C.  M. 
P.  C.,"  I  continued,  "who  was  the  discoverer  of  the 
sources  of  the  Hampstead  Ponds."  At  this — for  my 
manner  was  impressive — she  fumbled  through  the  last 
few  pages  of  her  register  and  admitted  that  he  might 
have  been  once  a  patron  of  the  house,  but  that  he  had 
now  paid  his  bill  and  gone. 

I  was  about  to  question  her  about  the  poet  Augus 
tus  Snodgrass,  who  had  been  with  Mr.  Pickwick  on 
his  travels,  when  a  waiter,  a  humorous  fellow  with  a 
vision  of  a  sixpence,  offered  to  be  our  guide.  We 
climbed  the  stairs  and  came  upon  the  ballroom.  It 
was  a  small  room.  Three  quadrilles  must  have 
stuffed  it  to  the  edge — a  dingy  place  with  bare  win 
dows  on  a  deserted  innyard.  At  one  end  was  a 
balcony  that  would  hold  not  more  than  three  musi- 


56  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

cians.  The  candles  of  its  former  brightness  have 
long  since  burned  to  socket.  Vanished  are  "Sir 
Thomas  Clubber,  Lady  Clubber  and  the  Miss 
Clubbers!"  Gone  is  the  Honorable  Wilmot  Snipe 
and  all  the  notables  that  once  crowded  it!  Vanished 
is  the  punchbowl  where  the  amorous  Tracy  Tupman 
drank  too  many  cups  of  negus  on  that  memorable 
night.  I  gave  the  dirty  waiter  a  sixpence  and  came 
away. 

I  discourage  the  usual  literary  pilgrimage.  In 
deed,  if  there  is  a  rumor  that  Milton  died  in  a  neigh 
boring  town,  or  a  treaty  of  consequence  was  signed 
close  by,  choose  another  path!  Let  neither  Oliver 
Cromwell  nor  the  Magna  Carta  deflect  your  course! 
One  of  my  finest  walks  was  on  no  better  advice  than 
the  avoidance  of  a  celebrated  shrine.  I  was  led  along 
the  swift  waters  of  a  river,  through  several  pretty 
towns,  and  witnessed  the  building  of  a  lofty  bridge. 
For  lunch  I  had  some  memorable  griddlecakes. 
Finally  I  rode  on  top  of  a  rattling  stage  with  a  gossip 
for  a  driver,  whose  long  finger  pointed  out  the  sights 
upon  the  road. 

But  for  the  liveliest  truancy,  keep  an  eye  out  for 
red-haired  and  freckled  lads,  and  make  them  your 
counselors!  Lads  so  spotted  and  colored,  I  have 
found,  are  of  unusual  enterprise  in  knowing  the  best 
woodland  paths  and  the  loftiest  views.  A  yellow- 
haired  boy,  being  of  paler  wit,  will  suck  his  thumb 
upon  a  question.  A  touzled  black  exhibits  a  sulky 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  57 

absorption  in  his  work.  An  indifferent  brown,  at 
best,  runs  for  an  answer  to  the  kitchen.  But  red- 
haired  and  freckled  lads  are  alive  at  once.  Whether 
or  not  their  roving  spirit,  which  is  the  basis  of  their 
deeper  and  quicker  knowledge,  proceeds  from  the 
magic  of  the  pigment,  the  fact  yet  remains  that  such 
boys  are  surer  than  a  signpost  to  direct  one  to  ad 
venture.  This  truth  is  so  general  that  I  have  read 
the  lives  of  the  voyagers — Robinson  Crusoe,  Captain 
Kidd  and  the  worthies  out  of  Hakluyt — if  perhaps 
a  hint  might  drop  that  they  too  in  their  younger  days 
were  freckled  and  red-haired.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh — 
I  choose  at  random — was  doubtless  called  "Carrots" 
by  his  playmates.  But  on  making  inquiry  of  a  red- 
haired  lad,  one  must  have  a  clear  head  in  the  tumult 
of  his  direction.  I  was  once  lost  for  several  hours  on 
the  side  of  Anthony's  Nose  above  the  Hudson  be 
cause  I  jumbled  such  advice.  And  although  I  made 
the  acquaintance  of  a  hermit  who  dwelt  on  the  moun 
tain  with  a  dog  and  a  scarecrow  for  his  garden — a 
fellow  so  like  him  in  garment  and  in  feature  that  he 
seemed  his  younger  and  cleaner  brother — still  I  did 
not  find  the  top  or  see  the  clear  sweep  of  the  Hudson 
as  was  promised. 

If  it  is  your  habit  to  inquire  of  distance  upon  the 
road,  do  not  quarrel  with  conflicting  opinion!  Judge 
the  answer  by  the  source!  Persons  of  stalwart  limb 
commonly  underestimate  a  distance,  whereas  those 
of  broken  wind  and  stride  stretch  it  greater  than  it 


58  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

is.  But  it  is  best  to  take  all  answers  lightly.  I  have 
heard  of  a  man  who  spent  his  rainy  evenings  on  a 
walking  trip  in  going  among  the  soda  clerks  and 
small  merchants  of  the  village,  not  for  information, 
but  to  contrast  their  ignorance.  Aladdin's  wicked 
uncle,  when  he  inquired  direction  to  the  mountain  of 
the  genii's  cave,  could  not  have  been  so  misdirected. 
Shoemakers,  candy-men  and  peddlers  of  tinware — if 
such  modest  merchants  existed  also  on  the  curb  in 
those  magic  days — must  have  been  of  nicer  knowl 
edge  or  old  Kazrac  would  never  have  found  the  lamp. 
In  my  friend's  case,  on  inquiry,  a  certain  hotel  at 
which  we  aimed  was  both  good  and  bad,  open  and 
shut,  burned  and  unburned. 

There  is  a  legend  of  the  Catholic  Church  about  a 
certain  holy  chapel  that  once  leaped  across  the  Alps. 
It  seems  gross  superstition,  yet  although  I  belong 
to  a  protesting  church,  I  assert  its  likelihood.  For 
I  solemnly  affirm  that  on  a  hot  afternoon  I  chased 
a  whole  village  that  skipped  quite  as  miraculously 
before  me  across  the  country.  It  was  a  village  of 
stout  leg  and  wind  and,  as  often  as  I  inquired,  it  still 
kept  seven  miles  ahead.  Once  only  I  gained,  by 
trotting  on  a  descent.  Not  until  night  when  the  vil 
lage  lay  down  to  rest  beside  a  quiet  river  did  I  finally 
overtake  it.  And  the  next  morning  I  arose  early  in 
order  to  be  off  first  upon  my  travels,  and  so  keep  the 
lively  rascal  in  the  rear. 

In  my  country  walks  I  usually  carry  a  book  in  the 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  59 

pocket  opposite  to  my  lunch.  I  seldom  read  it,  but 
it  is  a  comfort  to  have  it  handy.  I  am  told  that  at 
one  of  the  colleges,  students  of  smaller  application, 
in  order  that  they  may  truthfully  answer  as  to  the 
length  of  time  they  have  spent  upon  their  books,  do 
therefore  literally  sit  upon  a  pile  of  them,  as  on  a 
stool,  while  they  engage  in  pleasanter  and  more 
secular  reading.  I  do  not  examine  this  story  closely, 
which  rises,  doubtless,  from  the  jealousy  of  a  rival 
college.  Rather,  I  think  that  these  students  perch 
upon  the  books  which  presently  they  must  read,  on 
a  wise  instinct  that  this  preliminary  contact  starts 
their  knowledge.  And  therefore  a  favorite  volume, 
even  if  unopened  in  the  pocket,  does  nevertheless  by 
its  proximity  color  and  enhance  the  enjoyment  of 
the  day.  I  have  carried  Howell,  who  wrote  the 
"Familiar  Letters,"  unread  along  the  countryside.  A 
small  volume  of  Boswell  has  grown  dingy  in  my 
pocket.  I  have  gone  about  with  a  copy  of  Addison 
with  long  S's,  but  I  read  it  chiefly  at  home  when  my 
feet  are  on  the  fender. 

I  had  by  me  once  as  I  crossed  the  Devon  moors  a 
volume  of  "Richard  Feverel."  For  fifteen  miles  I 
had  struck  across  the  upland  where  there  is  scarcely  a 
house  in  sight — nothing  but  grazing  sheep  and  wild 
ponies  that  ran  at  my  approach.  Sometimes  a  marshy 
stream  flowed  down  a  shallow  valley,  with  a  curl  of 
smoke  from  a  house  that  stood  in  the  hollow.  At  the 
edge  of  this  moorland,  I  came  into  a  shady  valley 


60  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

that  proceeded  to  the  ocean.  My  feet  were  pinched 
and  tired  when  I  heard  the  sound  of  water  below  the 
road.  I  pushed  aside  the  bushes  and  saw  a  stream 
trickling  on  the  rocks.  I  thrust  my  head  into  a  pool 
until  the  water  ran  into  my  ears,  and  then  sat  with 
my  bare  feet  upon  the  cool  stones  where  the  runnel 
lapped  them,  and  read  "Richard  Feverel."  To  this 
day,  at  the  mention  of  the  title,  I  can  hear  the  pleas 
ant  brawl  of  water  and  the  stirring  of  the  branches 
in  the  wind  that  wandered  down  the  valley. 

Hazlitt  tells  us  in  a  famous  passage  with  what 
relish  he  once  read  "The  New  Eloise"  on  a  walking 
trip.  "It  was  on  the  10th  of  April,  1798,"  he  writes, 
"that  I  sat  down  to  a  volume  of  the  New  Eloise,  at 
the  inn  at  Llangollen,  over  a  bottle  of  sherry  and  a 
cold  chicken."  I  am  quite  unfamiliar  with  the  book, 
yet  as  often  as  I  read  the  essay — which  is  the  best 
of  Hazlitt — I  have  been  teased  to  buy  it.  Perhaps 
this  springs  in  part  from  my  own  recollection  of 
Llangollen,  where  I  once  stopped  on  a  walking  trip 
through  Wales.  The  town  lies  on  the  river  Dee  at 
the  foot  of  fertile  hills  patched  with  fences,  on  whose 
top  there  stand  the  ruins  of  Dinas  Bran,  a  fortress 
of  forgotten  history,  although  it  looks  grimly  towards 
the  English  marches  as  if  its  enemies  came  thence. 
Thrown  across  the  river  there  is  a  peaked  bridge  of 
gray  stone,  many  centuries  old,  on  which  the  village 
folk  gather  at  the  end  of  day.  I  dined  on  ale  and 
mutton  of  such  excellence  that,  for  myself,  a  cold 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  61 

volume  of  the  census — if  I  had  fallen  so  low — must 
have  remained  agreeably  in  memory.  I  recall  that 
a  street-organ  stopped  beneath  the  window  and 
played  a  merry  tune — or  perhaps  the  wicked  ale  was 
mounting — and  I  paused  in  my  onslaught  against 
the  mutton  to  toss  the  musician  a  coin. 

I  applaud  those  who,  on  a  walking  trip,  arise  and 
begin  their  journey  in  the  dawn,  but  although  I  am 
eager  at  night  to  make  an  early  start,  yet  I  blink  and 
growl  when  the  morning  comes.  I  marvel  at  the  poet 
who  was  abroad  so  early  that  he  was  able  to  write  of 
the  fresh  twilight  on  the  world — "Where  the  san 
dalled  Dawn  like  a  Greek  god  takes  the  hurdles  of 
the  hills" — but  for  my  own  part  I  would  have  slept 
and  missed  the  sight.  But  an  early  hour  is  best,  de 
spite  us  lazybones,  and  to  be  on  the  road  before  the 
dew  is  gone  and  while  yet  a  mist  arises  from  the 
hollows  is  to  know  the  journey's  finest  pleasure. 

Persons  of  early  hours  assert  that  they  feel  a  fine 
exaltation.  I  am  myself  inclined  to  think,  however, 
that  this  is  not  so  much  an  exaltation  that  arises  from 
the  beauty  of  the  hour,  as  from  a  feeling  of  superior 
ity  over  their  sleeping  and  inferior  comrades.  It  is 
akin  to  the  displeasing  vanity  of  those  persons  who 
walk  upon  a  boat  with  easy  stomach  while  their  com 
panions  lie  below.  I  would  discourage,  therefore, 
persons  that  lean  toward  conceit  from  putting  a  foot 
out  of  bed  until  the  second  call.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  who  are  of  a  self-depreciative  nature  should  get 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


up  with  the  worm  and  bird.  A  man  of  my  own 
acquaintance  who  was  sunk  in  self-abasement  for 
many  years,  was  roused  to  a  salutary  conceit  by  no 
other  tonic. 

And  it  is  certain  that  to  be  off  upon  a  journey  with 
a  rucksack  strapped  upon  you  at  an  hour  when  the 
butcher  boy  takes  down  his  shutters  is  a  high  pleasure. 
Off  you  go  through  the  village  with  swinging  arms. 
Off  you  go  across  the  country.  A  farmer  is  up  before 
you  and  you  hear  his  reaper  across  the  field,  and  the 
neighing  of  his  horses  at  the  turn.  Where  the  hill 
falls  sharp  against  the  sky,  there  he  stands  outlined, 
to  wipe  the  sweat.  And  as  your  nature  is,  swift  or 
sluggish  thoughts  go  through  your  brain — plots  and 
vagrant  fancies,  which  later  your  pencil  will  not 
catch.  It  is  in  these  earliest  hours  while  the  dew  still 
glistens  that  little  lyric  sentences  leap  into  your  mind. 
Then,  if  at  all,  are  windmills  giants. 

There  are  cool  retreats  where  you  may  rest  at 
noon,  but  Stevenson  has  written  of  these.  "You 
come,"  he  writes,  "to  a  milestone  on  a  hill,  or  some 
place  where  deep  ways  meet  under  trees ;  and  off  goes 
the  knapsack,  and  down  you  sit  to  smoke  a  pipe  in 
the  shade.  You  sink  into  yourself,  and  the  birds 
come  round  and  look  at  you;  and  your  smoke  dis 
sipates  upon  the  afternoon  under  the  blue  dome  of 
heaven;  and  the  sun  lies  warm  upon  your  feet,  and 
the  cool  air  visits  your  neck  and  turns  aside  your  open 


ON  GOING  AFOOT 


shirt.    If  you  are  not  happy,  you  must  have  an  evil 


conscience." 


And  yet  a  good  inn  at  night  holds  even  a  more 

tranquil  joy.     M and  I,  who  frequently  walk 

upon  a  holiday,  traversed  recently  a  mountain  road 
to  the  north  of  West  Point.  During  the  afternoon 
we  had  scrambled  up  Storm  King  to  a  bare  rock 
above  the  Hudson.  It  was  just  such  an  outlook  as 
Rip  found  before  he  met  the  outlandish  Dutchmen 
with  their  ninepins  and  flagon.  We  lay  here  above 
a  green  world  that  was  rimmed  with  mountains,  and 
watched  the  lagging  sails  and  puffs  of  smoke  upon 
the  river.  It  was  late  afternoon  when  we  descended 
to  the  mountain  road  that  runs  to  West  Point. 
During  all  the  day  there  had  been  distant  rumbling 
of  thunder,  as  though  a  storm  mustered  in  a  far-off 
valley, — or  perhaps  the  Dutchmen  of  the  legend  still 
lingered  at  their  game, — but  now  as  the  twilight  fell 
the  storm  came  near.  It  was  six  o'clock  when  a  sign 
board  informed  us  that  we  had  seven  miles  to  go,  and 
already  the  thunder  sounded  with  earnest  purpose. 
Far  below  in  the  dusk  we  saw  the  lights  of  West 
Point.  On  a  sudden,  while  I  was  still  fumbling  for 
my  poncho  which  was  rolled  inside  my  rucksack,  the 
storm  burst  upon  us.  We  put  up  the  umbrella  and 
held  the  poncho  against  the  wind  and  driving  rain. 
But  the  wind  so  whisked  it  about  and  the  rain  was  so 
eager  to  find  the  openings  that  presently  we  were 
drenched.  In  an  hour  we  came  to  West  Point. 


64  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

Luckily  the  cook  was  up,  and  she  served  us  a  hot 
dinner  in  our  rooms  with  the  washstand  for  a  table. 
When  we  started  there  was  a  piece  of  soap  in  the 
dish,  but  I  think  we  ate  it  in  our  hunger.  I  recall 
that  there  was  one  course  that  foamed  up  like  custard 
and  was  not  upon  the  bill.  It  was  a  plain  room  with 
meager  furniture,  yet  we  fell  asleep  with  a  satisfac 
tion  beyond  the  Cecils  in  their  lordly  beds.  I  stirred 
once  when  there  was  a  clamor  in  the  hall  of  guests 
returning  from  a  hop  at  the  Academy — a  prattle  of 
girls'  voices — then  slept  until  the  sun  was  up. 

But  my  preference  in  lodgings  is  the  low  sagging 
half-timbered  building  that  one  finds  in  the  country 
towns  of  England.  It  has  leaned  against  the  street 
and  dispensed  hospitality  for  three  hundred  years. 
It  is  as  old  a  citizen  as  the  castle  on  the  hill.  It  is  an 
inn  where  Tom  Jones  might  have  spent  the  night,  or 
any  of  the  rascals  out  of  Smollett.  Behind  the  wicket 
there  sits  a  shrewish  female  with  a  cold  eye  towards 
your  defects,  and  behind  her  there  is  a  row  of  bells 
which  jangle  when  water  is  wanted  in  the  rooms. 
Having  been  assigned  a  room  and  asked  the  hour  of 
dinner,  you  mount  a  staircase  that  rises  with  a 
squeak.  There  is  a  mustiness  about  the  place,  which 
although  it  is  unpleasant  in  itself,  is  yet  agreeable 
in  its  circumstance.  A  long  hall  runs  off  to  the  back 
of  the  house,  with  odd  steps  here  and  there  to  throw 
you.  Your  room  looks  out  upon  a  coach-yard,  and 
as  you  wash  you  overhear  a  love-passage  down  below. 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  65 

In  the  evening  you  go  forth  to  see  the  town.  If  it 
lies  on  the  ocean,  you  walk  upon  the  mole  and  watch 
the  fisher  folk  winding  up  their  nets,  or  sitting  with 
tranquil  pipes  before  their  doors.  Maybe  a  booth  has 
been  set  up  on  the  parade  that  runs  along  the  ocean, 
and  a  husky  fellow  bids  you  lay  out  a  sixpence  for 
the  show,  which  is  the  very  same,  he  bawls,  as  was 
played  before  the  King  and  the  Royal  Family.  This 
speech  is  followed  by  a  fellow  with  a  trombone,  who 
blows  himself  very  red  in  the  face. 

But  rather  I  choose  to  fancy  that  it  is  an  inland 
town,  and  that  there  is  a  quieter  traffic  on  the  streets. 
Here  for  an  hour  after  dinner,  while  darkness  settles, 
you  wander  from  shop  to  shop  and  put  your  nose 
upon  the  glass,  or  you  engage  the  lamplighter  as  he 
goes  his  rounds,  for  any  bit  of  news. 

Once  in  such  a  town  when  the  night  brought  rain, 
for  want  of  other  employment,  I  debated  divinity 
with  a  rigid  parson,  and  until  a  late  hour  sat  in  the 
thick  curtain  of  his  attack.  It  was  at  an  inn  of  one 
of  the  midland  counties  of  England,  a  fine  old 
weathered  building,  called  "The  King's  Arms."  In 
the  tap — for  I  thrust  my  thirsty  head  inside — was  an 
array  of  old  pewter  upon  the  walls,  and  two  or  three 
prints  of  prize  fighters  of  former  days.  But  it  was 
in  the  parlor  the  parson  engaged  me.  In  the  corner 
of  the  room  there  was  a  timid  fire — of  the  kind  usually 
met  in  English  inns — imprisoned  behind  a  grill  that 
had  been  set  up  stoutly  to  confine  a  larger  and 


66  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

rowdier  fire.  My  antagonist  was  a  tall  lank  man  of 
pinched  ascetic  face  and  dark  complexion,  with 
clothes  brushed  to  shininess,  and  he  belonged  to  a 
brotherhood  that  lived  in  one  of  the  poorer  parts  of 
London  along  the  wharves.  His  sojourn  at  the  inn 
was  forced.  For  two  weeks  in  the  year,  he  explained, 
each  member  was  cast  out  of  the  conventual  buildings 
upon  the  world.  This  was  done  in  penance,  as  the 
members  of  more  rigid  orders  in  the  past  were 
flagellants  for  a  season.  So  here  for  a  whole  week 
had  he  been  sitting,  for  the  most  part  in  rainy 
weather,  busied  with  the  books  that  the  inn  afforded — 
advertising  booklets  of  the  beauties  of  the  Alps — 
diagrams  of  steamships — and  peeking  out  of  doors 
for  a  change  of  sky. 

It  was  a  matter  of  course  that  he  should  engage 
me  in  conversation.  He  was  as  lonesome  for  a  chance 
to  bark  as  a  country  dog.  Presently  when  I  dis 
sented  from  some  point  in  his  creed,  he  called  me  a 
heretic,  and  I  with  gentlest  satire  asked  him  if  the 
word  yet  lived.  But  he  was  not  angry,  and  he  told 
me  of  his  brotherhood.  It  had  a  branch  in  America, 
and  he  bade  me,  if  ever  I  met  any  of  its  priests,  to 
convey  to  them  his  warm  regards.  As  for  America, 
it  was,  he  said,  too  coldly  ethical,  and  needed  most  a 
spiritual  understanding;  to  which  judgment  I  as 
sented.  I  wonder  now  whether  the  war  will  bring 
that  understanding.  Maybe,  unless  blind  hatred 
smothers  it. 


ON  GOING  AFOOT  67 

This  priest  was  a  mixture  of  stern  and  gentle 
qualities,  and  seemed  to  be  descended  from  those 
earlier  friars  that  came  to  England  in  cord  and  gown, 
and  went  barefoot  through  the  cities  to  minister 
comfort  and  salvation  to  the  poor  and  wretched. 
When  the  evening  was  at  last  spent,  by  common 
consent  we  took  our  candles  on  the  landing,  where, 
after  he  inculcated  a  final  doctrine  of  his  church  with 
waving  finger,  he  bade  me  good  night,  with  a  wish  of 
luck  for  my  journey  on  the  morrow,  and  sought  his 
room. 

My  own  room  lay  down  a  creaking  hallway.  When 
undressed,  I  opened  my  window  and  looked  upon  the 
street.  All  lights  were  out.  At  last  the  rain  had 
ceased,  and  now  above  the  housetops  across  the  way, 
through  a  broken  patch  of  cloud,  a  star  appeared 
with  a  promise  of  a  fair  tomorrow. 


On  Livelihoods. 

SOMEWHERE  in  his  letters,  I  think,  Steven 
son  pronounces  street  paving  to  be  his  favorite 
occupation.  I  fancy,  indeed, — and  I  have  ran 
sacked  his  life, — that  he  never  applied  himself  to  its 
practice  for  an  actual  livelihood.  That  was  not 
necessary.  Rather,  he  looked  on  at  the  curb  in  a 
careless  whistling  mood,  hands  deep  in  the  pockets 
of  his  breeks,  in  a  lazy  interval  between  plot  and 
essay.  The  sunny  morning  had  dropped  its  golden 
invitation  through  his  study*  windows,  and  he  has 
wandered  forth  to  see  the  world.  Let  my  heroes — for 
thus  I  interpret  him  at  his  desk  as  the  sunlight  beck 
oned — let  my  heroes  kick  their  heels  in  patience! 
Let  villains  fret  inside  the  inkpot !  Down,  sirs,  down, 
into  the  glossy  magic  pool,  until  I  dip  you  up! 
Pirates — for  surely  such  miscreants  lurked  among 
his  papers — let  pirates,  he  cries,  save  their  red  oaths 
until  tomorrow!  My  hat!  My  stick! 

It  was  thus,  then,  as  an  amateur  that  Stevenson 
looked  on  street  paving — the  even  rows  of  cobbles, 
the  nice  tapping  to  fit  the  stones  against  the  curb, 
the  neat  joint  around  the  drain.  And  yet,  unpardon- 
ably,  he  neglects  the  tarpot;  and  this  seems  the  very 
soul  of  the  business,  the  finishing  touch — almost 
culinary,  as  when  a  cook  pours  on  a  chocolate  sauce. 


ON  LIVELIHOODS  69 

I  remember  pleasantly  when  our  own  street  was 
paved.  There  had  been  laid  a  waterpipe,  deep  down 
where  the  earth  was  yellow — surely  gold  was  near — 
and  several  of  us  young  rascals  climbed  in  and  out 
in  the  twilight  when  work  was  stopped.  By  fits  we 
were  both  mountaineers  and  miners.  There  was  an 
agreeable  gassy  smell  as  if  we  neared  the  lower 
regions.  Here  was  a  playground  better  than  the 
building  of  a  barn,  even  with  its  dizzy  ladders  and  the 
scaffolding  around  the  chimney.  Or  we  hid  in  the 
great  iron  pipes  that  lay  along  the  gutters,  and  fol 
lowed  our  leader  through  them  home  from  school. 
But  when  the  pipes  were  lowered  into  place  and  the 
surface  was  cobbled  but  not  yet  sanded,  then  the 
tarpot  yielded  gum  for  chewing.  At  any  time  after 
supper  a  half  dozen  of  us — blacker  daubs  against  the 
darkness — might  have  been  seen  squatting  on  the 
stones,  scratching  at  the  tar.  Blackjack,  bought  at 
the  corner,  had  not  so  full  a  flavor.  But  one  had  to 
chew  forward  in  the  mouth — lightly,  lest  the  tar 
adhere  forever  to  the  teeth. 

And  yet  I  am  not  entirely  in  accord  with  Steven 
son  in  his  preference. 

And  how  is  it,  really,  that  people  fall  into  their 
livelihoods?  What  circumstance  or  necessity  drives 
them?  Does  choice,  after  all,  always  yield  to  a  con 
trary  wind  and  run  for  any  port?  Is  hunger  always 
the  helmsman?  How  many  of  us,  after  due  appraisal 
of  ourselves,  really  choose  our  own  parts  in  the 


70  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

mighty  drama? — first  citizen  or  second,  with  our 
shrill  voices  for  a  moment  above  the  crowd — first 
citizen  or  second — brief  choristers,  except  for  vanity, 
against  a  painted  scene.  How  runs  the  rhyme? — 
rich  man,  poor  man,  beggar  man,  thief;  doctor, 
lawyer,  merchant,  chief!  And  a  robustious  fellow 
with  great  voice,  and  lace  and  sword,  strutting  for 
ward  near  the  lights. 

Meditating  thus,  I  frequently  poke  about  the  city 
in  the  end  of  afternoon  "when  the  mind  of  your  man 
of  letters  requires  some  relaxation."  I  peer  into  shop 
windows,  not  so  much  for  the  wares  displayed  as  for 
glimpses  of  the  men  and  women  engaged  in  their 
disposal.  I  watch  laborers  trudging  home  with  the 
tired  clink  of  their  implements  and  pails.  I  gaze 
into  cellarways  where  tailor  and  cobbler  sit  bent 
upon  their  work — needle  and  peg,  their  world — and 
through  fouled  windows  into  workrooms,  to  learn 
which  livelihoods  yield  the  truest  happiness.  For  it 
is,  on  the  whole,  a  whistling  rather  than  a  grieving 
world,  and  like  little  shouts  among  the  hills  is  laughter 
echoed  in  the  heart. 

I  can  well  understand  how  one  can  become  a  baker 
or  even  a  small  grocer  with  a  pencil  behind  his  ear. 
I  could  myself  honestly  recommend  an  apple — an 
astrachan  for  sauces — or,  in  the  season,  offer  aspar 
agus  with  something  akin  to  enthusiasm.  Cran 
berries,  too,  must  be  an  agreeable  consort  of  the 
autumn  months  when  the  air  turns  frosty.  I  would 


ON  LIVELIHOODS  71 

own  a  cat  with  a  dusty  nose  to  rub  along  the  barrels 
and  sleep  beneath  the  stove.  I  would  carry  dried 
meats  in  stock  were  it  only  for  the  electric  slicing 
machine.  And  whole  cheeses!  Or  to  a  man  of 
romantic  mind  an  old  brass  shop  may  have  its  lure. 
To  one  of  musty  turn,  who  would  sit  apart,  there  is 
something  to  be  said  for  the  repair  of  violins  and 
'cellos.  At  the  least  he  sweetens  discord  into  melody. 
But  I  would  not  willingly  keep  a  second-hand 
bookshop.  It  is  too  cluttered  a  business.  There  is 
too  free  a  democracy  between  good  and  bad.  It  was 
Dean  Swift  who  declared  that  collections  of  books 
made  him  melancholy,  "where  the  best  author  is  as 
much  squeezed  and  as  obscure  as  a  porter  at  a  coro 
nation."  Nor  is  it  altogether  reassuring  for  one  who 
is  himself  by  way  of  being  an  author  to  view  the 
certain  neglect  that  awaits  him  when  attics  are 
cleared  at  last.  There  is  too  leathery  a  smell  upon 
the  premises,  a  thick  deposit  of  mortality.  I  draw 
a  deep  breath  when  I  issue  on  the  street,  grateful  for 
the  sunlight  and  the  wind.  However,  I  frequently 
put  my  head  in  at  Pratt's  around  the  corner,  some 
times  by  chance  when  the  family  are  assembled  for 
their  supper  in  one  of  the  book  alcoves.  They  have 
swept  back  a  litter  of  historians  to  make  room  for 
the  tray  of  dishes.  To  cut  them  from  the  shop  they 
have  drawn  a  curtain  in  front  of  their  nook,  but  I  can 
hear  the  teapot  bubbling  on  the  counter.  There  is, 
also,  a  not  unsavory  smell  which,  if  my  old  nose 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


retains  its  cunning,  is  potato  stew,  fetched  up  from 
the  kitchen.  If  you  seek  Gibbon  now,  Pratt's  face 
will  show  like  a  withered  moon  between  the  curtains 
and  will  request  you  to  call  later  when  the  dishes  have 
been  cleared. 

No  one  works  in  cleaner  produce  than  carpenters. 
They  are  for  the  most  part  a  fatherly  whiskered 
tribe  and  they  eat  their  lunches  neatly  from  a  pail, 
their  backs  against  the  wall,  their  broad  toes  up 
turned.  I  look  suspiciously  on  painters,  however, 
who  present  themselves  for  work  like  slopped  and 
shoddy  harlequins,  and  although  I  have  myself  passed 
a  delightful  afternoon  painting  a  wooden  fence  at  the 
foot  of  the  garden  —  and  been  scraped  afterwards  —  I 
would  not  wish  to  be  of  their  craft. 

But  perhaps  one  is  of  restless  habit  and  a  peri 
patetic  occupation  may  be  recommended.  For  a 
bachelor  of  small  expense,  at  a  hazard,  a  wandering 
fruit  and  candy  cart  offers  the  venture  and  chance 
of  unfamiliar  journeys.  There  is  a  breed  of  lollypop 
on  a  stick  that  shows  a  handsome  profit  when  the 
children  come  from  school.  Also,  at  this  minute,  I 
hear  below  me  on  the  street  the  flat  bell  of  the  scissors- 
grinder.  I  know  not  what  skill  is  required,  yet  it 
needs  a  pretty  eye  and  even  foot.  The  ragman  takes 
to  an  ancestral  business  and  chants  the  ancient  song 
of  his  fathers.  When  distance  has  somewhat  muffled 
its  nearer  sharpness,  the  song  bears  a  melody  un 
paralleled  among  tradesmen's  cries.  Window  glass, 


ON  LIVELIHOODS  73 

too,  is  hawked  pleasantly  from  house  to  house  and 
requires  but  a  knife  and  putty.  In  the  spring  the 
vegetable  vender,  standing  in  his  wagon,  utters 
melodious  sounds  that  bring  the  housewives  to  their 
windows.  Once,  also,  by  good  luck,  I  fell  into 
acquaintance  with  a  fellow  who  peddled  brooms  and 
dustpans  along  the  countryside.  He  was  hung  both 
front  and  back  with  cheap  commodities — a  necklace 
of  scrubbing  brushes — tins  jangling  against  his 
knees.  A  very  kitchen  had  become  biped.  A  pantry 
had  gone  on  pilgrimage.  Except  for  dogs,  which 
seemed  maddened  by  his  strange  appearance,  it  was, 
he  informed  me,  an  engaging  livelihood  for  a  man 
who  chafed  indoors.  Or  for  one  of  dreamy  disposi 
tion  the  employment  of  a  sandwich  man,  with  bill 
boards  fore  and  aft,  offers  a  profitable  repose.  Some 
times  several  of  these  philosophers  journey  together 
up  the  street  in  a  crowded  hour,  one  behind  another 
with  slow  introspective  step,  as  befits  their  high 
preoccupation. 

Or  one  has  an  ear,  and  the  street-organ  commends 
itself.  Observe  the  musician  at  the  corner,  hat  in 
hand  and  smiling!  Let  but  a  curtain  stir  and  his  eye 
will  catch  it.  He  hears  a  falling  penny  as  'twere  any 
nightingale.  His  tunes  are  the  herald  of  the  gaudy 
spring.  His  are  the  dancing  measures  of  the  sun 
light.  And  is  anyone  a  surer  judge  of  human  nature? 
He  allows  dyspeptics  to  slink  along  the  fence.  Those 
of  bilious  aspect  may  go  their  ways  unchallenged. 


74  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

Spare  me  those,  he  says,  who  have  not  music  in  their 
souls :  they  are  fit  for  treasons,  stratagems,  and  spoils. 
It  was  with  a  flute  that  the  poet  Goldsmith  starved 
his  way  through  France.  Yet  the  flute  is  a  cold  un- 
stirring  instrument.  He  would  have  dined  the  oftener 
had  he  pitched  upon  a  street-organ. 

But  in  this  Christmas  season  there  is  a  man  goes 
up  and  down  among  the  shoppers  blowing  shrill 
tunes  upon  a  pipe.  A  card  upon  his  hat  announces 
that  it  is  music  makes  the  home  and  that  one  of  his 
marvelous  implements  may  be  bought  for  the  trifling 
and  altogether  insignificant  sum  of  ten  cents.  A 
reticule  across  his  stomach  bulges  with  his  pipes.  He 
seems  to  manipulate  the  stops  with  his  fingers,  but 
I  fancy  that  he  does  no  more  than  sing  into  the  larger 
opening.  Yet  his  gay  tune  sounds  above  the  traffic. 

I  have  wondered  where  such  seasonal  professions 
recruit  themselves.  The  eyeglass  man  still  stands  at 
his  corner  with  his  tray.  He  is,  moreover,  too  sodden 
a  creature  to  play  upon  a  pipe.  Nor  is  there  any 
dwindling  of  shoe-lace  peddlers.  The  merchants  of 
popcorn  have  not  fallen  off  in  number,  and  peanuts 
hold  up  strong.  Rather,  these  Christmas  musicians 
are  of  the  tribe  which  at  other  festivals  sell  us  little 
flags  and  bid  us  show  our  colors.  They  come  from 
country  fairs  and  circuses.  All  summer  long  they 
bid  us  gather  for  the  fat  man,  or  they  cry  up  the 
beauties  of  a  Turkish  harem.  If  some  valiant  fellow 
in  a  painted  tent  is  about  to  swallow  glass,  they  are 


ON  LIVELIHOODS  75 

his  horn  and  drum  to  draw  the  crowd.  I  once  knew 
a  side-show  man  who  bent  iron  bars  between  his  teeth 
and  who  summoned  stout  men  from  his  audience  to 
swing  upon  the  bar,  but  I  cannot  believe  that  he  has 
discharged  the  bawling  rascal  at  his  door.  I  rather 
choose  to  think  that  the  piper  was  one  of  those  self 
same  artists  who,  on  lesser  days,  squeeze  comic  rubber 
faces  in  their  fingers,  or  make  the  monkey  climb  its 
predestined  stick. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  presently  the  piper  hit  on  a  per 
suasive  tune  and  I  abandoned  all  thought  of  the 
Noah's  ark — my  errand  of  the  morning  for  my 
nephew — and  joined  the  crowd  that  followed  him. 
Hamelin  Town  was  come  again.  But  street  violins 
I  avoid.  They  suggest  mortgages  and  unpaid  rent. 

But  with  the  world  before  him  why  should  a  man 
turn  dentist  ?  He  must  have  been  a  cruel  fellow  from 
his  rattle.  When  did  his  malicious  ambition  first 
sprout  up  towards  molars  and  bicuspids?  Or  who 
would  scheme  to  be  a  plumber?  He  is  a  cellarer— 
alas,  how  shrunk  from  former  days !  Or  consider  the 
tailor!  Perhaps  you  recall  Elia's  estimate.  "Do  you 
ever  see  him,"  he  asks,  "go  whistling  along  the  foot 
path  like  a  carman,  or  brush  through  a  crowd  like  a 
baker,  or  go  smiling  to  himself  like  a  lover?" 

Certainly  I  would  not  wish  to  be  a  bookkeeper  and 
sit  bent  all  day  over  another's  wealth.  I  would  not 
want  to  bring  in  on  lifted  fingers  the  meats  which 
another  eats.  Nor  would  I  choose  to  be  a  locksmith, 


76  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

which  is  a  kind  of  squint-eyed  business,  up  two  dismal 
stairs  and  at  the  rear.  A  gas  lamp  flares  at  the  turn. 
A  dingy  staircase  mounts  into  a  thicker  gloom.  The 
locksmith  consorts  with  pawnbrokers,  with  cheap 
sign-makers  and  with  disreputable  doctors;  yet  he  is 
not  of  them.  For  there  adheres  to  him  a  sort  of 
romance.  He  is  a  creature  of  another  time,  set  in 
our  midst  by  the  merest  chance.  The  domestic  cat, 
descended  from  the  jungle,  is  not  more  shrunk.  Keys 
have  fallen  on  evil  days.  Observe  the  mighty  row  of 
them  hung  discarded  along  his  boxes !  Each  one  is  fit 
to  unlock  a  castle.  Warwick  itself  might  yield  to 
such  a  weight  of  metal — rusty  now,  disused,  quite  out 
of  fashion,  displaced  by  a  race  of  dwarfs.  In  the  old 
prints,  see  how  the  London  'prentice  runs  with  his 
great  key  in  the  dawn  to  take  down  his  master's  shut 
ter!  In  a  musty  play,  observe  the  jailor  at  the  dun 
geon  door!  Without  massive  keys  jingling  at  the 
belt  the  older  drama  must  have  been  a  weakling. 
Only  lovers,  then,  dared  to  laugh  at  locksmiths.  But 
now  locksmiths  sit  brooding  on  the  past,  shriveled  to 
mean  uses,  ready  for  paltry  kitchen  jobs. 

And  the  undertaker,  what  shall  we  say  of  him? 
That  black  coat  with  the  flower!  That  mournful 
smile!  That  perfect  grief!  And  yet,  I  am  told, 
undertakers,  after  hours,  go  singing  home  to  supper, 
and  spend  their  evenings  at  the  movies  like  us  rougher 
folk.  It  was  David  Copperfield,  you  recall,  who 
dined  with  an  undertaker  and  his  family — in  the 


ON  LIVELIHOODS  77 

room,  no  doubt,  next  to  the  coffin  storage — and  he 
remarked  at  the  time  how  cheerfully  the  joint  went 
round.  One  of  this  sober  cloth,  moreover,  has  con 
fided  to  me  that  they  let  themselves  loose,  above  all 
professions,  in  their  reunions  and  conventions.  If 
an  unusual  riot  issues  from  the  door  and  a  gay  fellow 
goes  walking  on  the  table  it  is  sure  that  either 
lawyers  or  undertakers  sit  inside. 

For  myself,  if  I  were  to  become  a  merchant,  I 
would  choose  a  shop  at  a  four-corners  in  the  country, 
and  I  would  stock  from  shoe-laces  to  plows.  There 
is  no  virtue  in  keeping  store  in  the  city.  It  is  merely 
by  favor  that  customers  show  themselves.  Candidly, 
your  competitor  can  better  supply  their  wants.  This 
is  not  so  at  the  four-corners.  Nor  is  anyone  a  more 
influential  citizen  than  a  country  merchant.  He  sets 
the  style  in  calicoes.  He  judges  between  check  and 
stripe.  His  decision  against  a  high  heel  flattens  the 
housewives  by  an  inch.  But  if  I  kept  such  a  country 
store,  I  would  provide  an  open  fire  and,  when  the 
shadows  lengthened,  an  easy  chair  or  two  for  gossips. 

I  was  meditating  lately  on  these  strange  prefer 
ences  in  livelihoods  and  was  gazing  through  the  city 
windows  for  any  clue  when  I  was  reminded  of  a 
tempting  scheme  that  Wee  Jessie — a  delightful  Scots 
woman  of  my  acquaintance — has  planned  for  several 
of  us. 

We  are  to  be  traveling  merchants  for  a  season,  with 
a  horse  and  wagon  or  a  motor.  My  own  preference 


78  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

is  a  motor,  and  already  I  see  a  vehicle  painted  in 
bright  colors  and  opening  up  behind  as  spacious  as 
a  waffle  cart.  There  will  be  windows  all  around  for 
the  display  of  goods.  It  is  not  quite  fixed  what  we 
shall  sell.  Wee  Jessie  leans  toward  bonnets  and  little 
millinery  odds  and  ends.  I  am  for  kitchen  tins. 

M inclines  toward  drygoods,  serviceable  fabrics. 

It  is  thought  that  we  shall  live  on  the  roof  while  on 
tour,  with  a  canvas  to  draw  on  wet  nights.  We  shall 
possess  a  horn — on  which  Wee  Jessie  once  practiced 
in  her  youth — to  gather  up  the  crowd  when  we  enter 
a  village. 

Fancy  us,  therefore,  my  dear  sir,  as  taking  the 
road  late  this  coming  spring  in  time  to  spread  the 
summer's  fashions.  And  if  you  hear  our  horn  at 
twilight  in  your  village — a  tune  of  more  wind  than 
melody,  unless  Jessie  shall  cure  her  imperfections — 
know  that  on  the  morrow,  by  the  pump,  we  shall 
display  our  wares. 


The  Tread  of  the  Friendly  Giants. 

When  our  Babe  he  goeth  walking  in  his  garden, 
Around  his  tinkling  feet  the  sunbeams  play. 

IT  has  been  my  fortune  to  pass  a  few  days  where 
there  lives  a  dear  little  boy  of  less  than  three. 
My  first  knowledge  of  him  every  morning  is  the 
smothered  scuffling  through  the  partition  as  he 
reluctantly  splashes  in  his  bath.  Here,  unless  he 
mend  his  caution,  I  fear  he  will  never  learn  to  play 
the  porpoise  at  the  Zoo.  Then  there  is  a  wee  tapping 
at  my  door.  It  is  a  fairy  sound  as  though  Mustard- 
seed  were  in  the  hall.  Or  it  might  be  Pease-blossom 
rousing  up  Cobweb  in  the  play,  to  repel  the  red- 
hipped  humble-bee.  It  is  so  slight  a  tapping  that 
if  I  sleep  with  even  one  ear  inside  the  covers  I  will 
not  hear  it. 

The  little  lad  stands  in  the  dim  passage  to  greet 
me,  fully  dressed,  to  reproach  me  with  my  tardiness. 


SO  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

He  is  a  mite  of  a  fellow,  but  he  is  as  wide  awake  and 
shiny  as  though  he  were  a  part  of  the  morning  and 
had  been  wrought  delicately  out  of  the  dawn's  first 
ray.  Indeed,  I  choose  to  fancy  that  the  sun,  being 
off  hurriedly  on  broader  business,  has  made  him  his 
agent  for  the  premises.  Particularly  he  assists  in  this 
passage  at  my  bedroom  door  where  the  sleepy  Night, 
which  has  not  yet  caught  the  summons,  still  stretches 
and  nods  beyond  the  turn.  It  is  so  dark  here  on  a 
winter's  morning  when  the  nursery  door  is  shut  that 
even  an  adventuring  sunlight,  if  it  chanced  to  clamber 
through  the  window,  would  blink  and  falter  in  the 
hazard  of  these  turns.  But  the  sun  has  sent  a  sub 
stitute  better  than  himself:  for  is  there  not  a  shaft 
of  light  along  the  floor?  It  can  hardly  fall  from  the 
window  or  anywhere  from  the  outside  world. 

The  little  lad  stands  in  the  passage  demanding  that 
I  get  up.  "Get  up,  lazybones!"  he  says.  Pretty 
language  to  his  elders!  He  speaks  soberly,  halting 
on  each  syllable  of  the  long  and  difficult  word.  He 
is  so  solemn  that  the  jest  is  doubled.  And  now  he 
runs  off,  jouncing  and  stiff-legged  to  his  nursery. 
I  hear  him  dragging  his  animals  from  his  ark,  telling 
them  all  that  they  are  lazybones,  even  his  barking 
dog  and  roaring  lion.  Noah,  when  he  saw  on  that 
first  morning  that  his  ark  was  grounded  on  Ararat, 
did  not  rouse  his  beasts  so  early  to  leave  the  ship. 

Later  I  meet  the  lad  at  breakfast,  locked  in  his 
high  chair.  In  these  riper  hours  of  day  there  is  less 


TREAD  OF  THE  FRIENDLY  GIANTS         81 

of  Cobweb  in  his  composition.  He  is  now  every  inch 
a  boy.  He  raps  his  spoon  upon  his  tray.  He  hurls 
food  in  the  general  direction  of  his  mouth.  If  an 
ear  escape  the  assault  it  is  gunnery  beyond  the 
common.  He  is  bibbed  against  misadventure.  This 
morning  he  yearns  loudly  for  muffins,  which  he  calls 
"bums."  He  chooses  those  that  are  unusually  brown 
with  a  smudge  of  the  cooking-tin,  and  these  he  calls 
"dirty  bums." 

Such  is  my  nephew — a  round-cheeked,  blue-eyed 
rogue  who  takes  my  thumb  in  all  his  fingers  when 
we  go  walking.  His  jumpers  are  slack  behind  and 
they  wag  from  side  to  side  in  an  inexpressibly  funny 
manner,  but  this  I  am  led  to  believe  springs  not  from 
any  special  genius  but  is  common  to  all  children. 
It  is  only  recently  that  he  learned  to  walk,  for  al 
though  he  was  forward  with  his  teeth  and  their  early 
sprouting  ran  in  gossip  up  the  street,  yet  he  lagged 
in  locomotion.  Previously  he  advanced  most  surely 
on  his  seat — his  slider,  as  he  called  it — throwing  out 
his  legs  and  curling  them  in  under  so  as  to  draw  him 
after.  By  this  means  he  attained  a  fine  speed  upon 
a  slippery  floor,  but  he  chafed  upon  a  carpet.  His 
mother  and  I  agreed  that  this  was  quite  an  unusual 
method  and  that  it  presaged  some  rare  talent  for  his 
future,  as  the  scorn  of  a  rattle  is  said  to  predict  a 
judge.  It  was  during  one  of  these  advances  across 
the  kitchen  floor  where  the  boards  are  rough  that  an 
accident  occurred.  As  he  excitedly  put  it,  with  a 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


fitting  gesture  to  the  rear,  he  got  a  sliver  in  his  slider. 
But  now  he  goes  upon  his  feet  with  a  waddle  like  a 
sailor,  and  he  wags  his  slider  from  side  to  side. 

Sometimes  we  play  at  hide-and-seek  and  we  pop 
out  at  one  another  from  behind  the  sofa.  He  lacks 
ingenuity  in  this,  for  he  always  hides  in  the  same 
place.  I  have  tempted  him  for  variety  to  stow  him 
self  in  the  woodbox.  Or  the  pantry  would  hold  him 
if  he  squeezed  in  among  the  brooms.  Nor  does  my 
ingenuity  surpass  his,  for  regularly  in  a  certain  order 
I  shake  the  curtains  at  the  door  and  spy  under  the 
table.  I  stir  the  wastebasket  and  peer  within  the 
vases,  although  they  would  hardly  hold  his  shoe. 
Then  when  he  is  red-hot  to  be  found  and  is  already 
peeking  impatiently  around  the  sofa,  at  last  I  cry  out 
his  discovery  and  we  begin  all  over  again. 

I  play  ball  with  him  and  bounce  it  off  his  head,  a 
game  of  more  mirth  in  the  acting  than  in  the  telling. 
Or  we  squeeze  his  animals  for  the  noises  that  they 
make.  His  lion  in  particular  roars  as  though  lungs 
were  its  only  tenant.  But  chiefly  I  am  fast  in  his 
friendship  because  I  ride  upon  his  bear.  I  take  the 
door  at  a  gallop.  I  rear  at  the  turn.  I  fall  off  in 
my  most  comical  fashion.  Sometimes  I  manage  to 
kick  over  his  blocks;  at  which  we  call  it  a  game,  and 
begin  again.  He  has  named  the  bear  in  my  honor. 

We  start  all  of  our  games  again  just  as  soon  as  we 
have  finished  them.  That  is  what  a  game  is.  And  if  it 
is  worth  playing  at  all,  it  is  worth  endless  repetition. 


TREAD  OF  THE  FRIENDLY  GIANTS          83 

If  I  strike  a  rich  deep  tone  upon  the  Burmese  gong, 
I  must  continue  to  strike  upon  it  until  I  can  draw  his 
attention  to  something  else.  Once,  the  cook,  hearing 
the  din,  thought  that  I  hinted  for  my  dinner.  Being 
an  obliging  creature,  she  fell  into  such  a  flurry  and 
so  stirred  her  pans  to  push  the  cooking  forward,  that 
presently  she  burned  the  meat. 

Or  if  I  moo  like  a  cow,  I  must  moo  until  sunset. 
I  rolled  off  the  sofa  once  to  distract  him  when  the 
ugly  world  was  too  much  with  him.  Immediately  he 
brightened  from  his  complaint  and  demanded  that 
I  do  it  once  more.  And  lately,  when  a  puppy  bounced 
out  of  the  house  next  door  and,  losing  its  footing, 
rolled  heels  over  head  to  the  bottom  of  the  steps,  at 
once  he  pleaded  for  an  encore.  To  him  all  the 
world's  a  stage. 

My  nephew  observes  me  closely  to  see  what  kind 
of  fellow  I  am.  I  study  him,  too.  He  watches  me 
over  the  top  of  his  mug  at  breakfast  and  I  stare  back 
at  him  over  my  coffee  cup.  If  I  wrinkle  my  nose,  he 
wrinkles  his.  If  I  stick  out  my  tongue,  he  sticks  his 
out,  too.  He  answers  wink  with  wink.  When  I  pet 
his  woolly  lamb,  however,  he  seems  to  wonder  at  my 
absurdity.  When  I  wind  up  his  steam  engine,  cer 
tainly  he  suspects  that  I  am  a  novice.  He  shows  a 
disregard  of  my  castles,  and  although  I  build  them 
on  the  windy  vantage  of  a  chair,  with  dizzy  battle 
ments  topping  all  the  country,  he  brushes  them  into 
ruin. 


84  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

Sometimes  I  fancy  that  his  glance  is  mixed  with 
scorn,  and  that  he  considers  my  attempts  to  amuse 
him  as  rather  a  silly  business.  I  wonder  what  he 
thinks  about  when  he  looks  at  me  seriously.  I  can 
not  doubt  his  wisdom.  He  seems  to  resemble  a 
philosopher  who  has  traveled  to  us  from  a  distant 
world.  If  he  cast  me  a  sentence  from  Plato,  I  would 
say,  "Master,  I  listen."  Is  it  Greek  he  speaks,  or  a 
dark  language  from  a  corner  of  the  sky?  He  has  a 
far-off  look  as  though  he  saw  quite  through  these 
superficial  affairs  of  earth.  His  eyes  have  borrowed 
the  color  of  his  wanderings  and  they  are  as  blue  as 
the  depths  beyond  the  moon.  And  I  think  of  another 
child,  somewhat  older  than  himself,  whose  tin  sol 
diers  these  many  years  are  rusted,  a  thoughtful  silent 
child  who  was  asked,  once  upon  a  time,  what  he  did 
when  he  got  to  bed.  "Gampaw,"  he  replied,  "I  lies 
and  lies,  Gampaw,  and  links  and  links,  'til  I  know 
mos'  everysin'."  The  snow  of  a  few  winters,  the  sun 
of  summer,  the  revolving  stars  and  seasons — until 
this  lad  now  serves  in  France. 

My  nephew,  although  he  too  roams  these  distant 
spaces  of  philosophic  thought  and  brings  back  strange 
unexpected  treasure,  has  not  arrived  at  the  age  of 
mere  terrestrial  exploration.  He  is  quite  ignorant  of 
his  own  house  and  has  no  curiosity  about  the  back 
stairs — the  back  stairs  that  go  winding  darkly  from 
the  safety  of  the  kitchen.  Scarcely  is  the  fizzing  of 
dinner  lost  than  a  new  strange  world  engulfs  one. 


TREAD  OF  THE  FRIENDLY  GIANTS         85 

He  is  too  young  to  know  that  a  doorway  in  the  dark 
is  the  portal  of  adventure.  He  does  not  know  the 
mystery  and  the  twistings  of  the  cellar,  or  the  shadows 
of  the  upper  hallway  and  the  dim  hollows  that  grow 
and  spread  across  the  twilight. 

Dear  lad,  there  is  a  sunny  world  beyond  the  garden 
gate,  cities  and  rolling  hills  and  far-off  rivers  with 
white  sails  going  up  and  down.  There  are  wide 
oceans,  and  ships  with  tossing  lights,  and  islands  set 
with  palm  trees.  And  there  are  stars  above  your  roof 
for  you  to  wonder  at.  But  also,  nearer  home,  there 
are  gentle  shadows  on  the  stairs,  a  dim  cellar  for  the 
friendly  creatures  of  your  fancy,  and  for  your  exalted 
mood  there  is  a  garret  with  dark  corners.  Here,  on 
a  braver  morning,  you  may  push  behind  the  trunks 
and  boxes  and  come  to  a  land  unutterable  where  the 
furthest  Crusoe  has  scarcely  ventured.  Or  in  a  more 
familiar  hour  you  may  sit  alongside  a  window  high 
above  the  town.  Here  you  will  see  the  milkman  on 
his  rounds  with  his  pails  and  long  tin  dipper.  And 
these  misty  kingdoms  that  open  so  broadly  on  the 
world  are  near  at  hand.  They  are  yours  if  you  dare 
to  go  adventuring  for  them. 

Soon  your  ambition  will  leap  its  nursery  barriers. 
No  longer  will  you  be  content  to  sit  inside  this  quiet 
room  and  pile  your  blocks  upon  the  floor.  You  will 
be  off  on  discovery  of  the  long  trail  that  lies  along 
the  back  hall  and  the  pantry  where  the  ways  are  dark. 
You  will  wander  in  search  of  the  caverns  that  lie 


86  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

beneath  the  stairs  when  the  night  has  come.  You 
will  trudge  up  steps  and  down  for  any  lurking  ocean 
on  which  to  sail  your  pirate  ships.  Already  I  see  you 
gazing  with  wistful  eyes  into  the  spaces  beyond  the 
door — into  the  days  of  your  great  adventure.  In 
your  thought  is  the  patter  and  scurry  of  new  crea 
tion.  It  is  almost  fairy  time  for  you.  The  tread  of 
the  friendly  giants,  still  far  off,  is  sounding  in  the 
dark.  .  .  . 

Dear  little  lad,  in  this  darkness  may  there  be  no 
fear!  For  these  shadows  of  the  twilight — which  too 
long  have  been  chased  like  common  miscreants  with 
lamp  and  candle — are  really  friendly  beings  and  they 
wait  to  romp  with  you.  Because  thieves  have  walked 
in  darkness,  shall  darkness  be  called  a  thief?  Rather, 
let  the  dark  hours  take  their  repute  from  the  count 
less  gracious  spirits  that  are  abroad — the  quieter 
fancies  that  flourish  when  the  light  has  gone — the 
gentle  creatures  that  leave  their  hiding  when  the  sun 
has  set.  When  a  rug  lies  roughened  at  close  of  day, 
it  is  said  truly  that  a  fairy  peeps  from  under  to  learn 
if  at  last  the  house  is  safe.  And  they  hide  in  the 
hallway  for  the  signal  of  your  coming,  yet  so  timid 
that  if  the  fire  is  stirred  they  scamper  beyond  the 
turn.  They  huddle  close  beneath  the  stairs  that  they 
may  listen  to  your  voice.  They  come  and  go  on  tip 
toe  when  the  curtain  sways,  in  the  hope  that  you  will 
follow.  With  their  long  thin  shadowy  fingers  they 
beckon  for  you  beneath  the  sofa. 


TREAD  OF  THE  FRIENDLY  GIANTS          87 

The  time  is  coming  when  you  can  no  longer  resist 
their  invitation,  when  you  will  leave  your  woolly 
lamb  and  your  roaring  lion  on  this  dull  safe  hearth 
and  will  go  on  pilgrimage.  The  back  stairs  sit 
patient  in  the  dark  for  your  hand  upon  the  door. 
The  great  dim  garret  that  has  sat  nodding  for  so 
many  years  will  smile  at  last  at  your  coming.  It  has 
been  lonely  so  long  for  the  glad  sound  of  running 
feet  and  laughter.  It  has  been  childless  so  many 
years. 

But  once  children's  feet  played  there  and  romped 
through  the  short  winter  afternoons.  A  rope  hung 
from  post  to  post  and  furnished  forth  a  circus.  Here 
giant  swings  were  hazarded.  Here  children  hung 
from  the  knees  until  their  marbles  and  other  wealth 
dropped  from  their  pockets.  And  for  less  ambitious 
moments  there  were  toys — 

The  little  toy  dog  is  covered  with  dust, 

But  sturdy  and  stanch  he  stands ; 

And  the  little  toy  soldier  is  red  with  rust, 

And  his  musket  moulds  in  his  hands. 

Time  was  when  the  little  toy  dog  was  new, 

And  the  soldier  was  passing  fair; 

And  that  was  the  time  when  our  Little  Boy  Blue 

Kissed  them  and  put  them  there. 

And  now  Little  Boy  Blue  again  climbs  the  long 
stairs.  He  stretches  up  on  tiptoe  to  turn  the  door 
knob  at  the  top.  He  listens  as  a  prudent  explorer 
should.  Cook  rattles  her  tins  below,  but  it  is  a  far- 


88  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

off  sound  as  from  another  world.  Somewhere,  doubt 
less,  the  friendly  milkman's  bell  goes  jingling  up  the 
street.  There  is  a  distant  barking  of  familiar  dogs. 
Will  it  not  be  better  to  return  to  the  safe  regions  and 
watch  the  traffic  from  the  window?  But  here,  beck 
oning,  is  the  great  adventure. 

The  brave  die  is  cast.  He  advances  with  out 
stretched  arms  into  the  darkness.  Suddenly,  behind 
him,  the  door  swings  shut.  The  sound  of  cooking- 
tins  is  lost.  Silence.  Silence,  except  for  branches 
scratching  on  the  roof.  But  the  garret  hears  the 
sound  of  feet,  and  it  rouses  itself  and  rubs  its  dusky 
eyes. 

But  when  darkness  thickens  and  the  sunlight  has 
vanished  from  the  floor,  then  comes  the  magic  hour. 
The  garret  then  tears  from  its  eyes  the  blind  bandage 
of  the  day.  Strange  creatures  lift  their  heads.  And 
now,  as  you  wait  expectant,  there  comes  a  mysterious 
sound  from  the  darkest  corner.  Is  it  a  mouse  that 
stirs?  Rather,  it  seems  a  far-off  sound,  as  though  a 
blind  man,  tapping  with  his  stick,  walked  on  the 
margin  of  the  world.  The  noise  comes  near.  It  gains 
in  volume.  It  is  close  at  hand.  Dear  lad,  you  have 
come  upon  the  magic  hour.  It  is  the  tread  of  the 
friendly  giants  that  is  sounding  in  the  dark.  .  .  . 


On  Spending  a  Holiday. 

AT  a  party  lately  a  worn  subject  came  under 
discussion. 
Our  host  lives  in  a  triangular  stone-paved 
courtyard  tucked  off  from  the  thoroughfare  but  with 
the  rattle  of  the  elevated  railway  close  at  hand.  The 
building  is  of  decent  brick,  three  stories  in  height, 
and  it  exhibits  to  the  courtyard  a  row  of  identical 
doorsteps.  The  entrance  to  the  courtyard  is  a  swing 
ing  shutter  between  buildings  facing  on  the  street, 
and  it  might  seem  a  mystery — like  the  apple  in  the 
dumpling — how  the  building  inside  squeezed  through 
so  narrow  an  entrance.  Yet  here  it  is,  with  a  rubber 
plant  in  one  corner  and  a  trellis  for  imaginary  vines 
in  the  other. 

In  this  courtyard,  Pomander  Walk  might  be 
acted  along  the  stoops.  For  a  necessary  stage  prop 
erty — you  recall,  of  course,  the  lamplighter  with  his 
ladder  in  the  second  act! — there  is  a  gas  lamp  of  old 
design  in  the  middle  of  the  enclosure,  up  near  the 
footlights,  as  it  were.  From  the  stoops  the  main 
comedy  might  proceed,  with  certain  business  at  the 
upper  windows — the  profane  Admiral  with  the  tim 
ber  leg  popping  his  head  out  of  one,  the  mysterious 
fat  man — in  some  sort  the  villain  of  the  piece — 
putting  his  head  out  of  another  to  woo  the  buxom 


90  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

widow  at  a  third.  And  then  the  muffin  man!  In 
the  twilight  when  the  lamp  is  lighted  and  the  heroine 
at  last  is  in  the  hero's  arms,  there  would  be  a  pleasant 
crunching  of  muffins  at  all  the  windows  as  the  curtain 
falls. 

But  I  shall  not  drop  even  a  hint  as  to  the  location 
of  this  courtyard.  Many  persons  think  that  New 
York  City  is  but  a  massive  gridiron,  and  they  are 
ignorant  of  the  nooks  and  quirks  and  angles  of  the 
lower  town.  Enough  that  the  Indian  of  a  modest 
tobacconist  guards  the  swinging  shutter  of  the  en 
trance  to  the  courtyard. 

Here  we  sat  in  the  very  window  I  had  designed  for 
the  profane  Admiral,  and  talked  in  the  quiet  interval 
between  trains. 

One  of  our  company — a  man  whom  I  shall  call 
Flint — was  hardy  enough  to  say  that  he  never  em 
ployed  his  leisure  in  going  to  the  country — that  a 
walk  about  the  city  streets  was  his  best  refreshment. 
Flint's  livelihood  is  cotton.  He  is  a  dumpish  sort 
of  person  who  looks  as  if  he  needed  exercise,  but  he 
has  a  sharp  clear  eye.  At  first  his  remark  fell  on  us 
as  a  mere  perversity,  as  of  one  who  proclaims  a 
humorous  whim.  And  yet  he  adhered  tenaciously 
to  his  opinion,  urging  smooth  pavements  against 
mud,  the  study  of  countless  faces  against  the  song  of 
birds  and  great  buildings  against  cliffs. 

Another  of  our  company  opposed  him  in  this — 
Colum,  who  chafes  as  an  accountant.  Colum  is  a 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLIDAY  91 

gentle  dreamy  fellow  who  likes  birds.  All  winter  he 
saves  his  tobacco  tins  which,  in  his  two  weeks'  vaca 
tion  in  the  country,  he  sets  up  in  trees  as  birdhouses. 
He  confesses  that  he  took  up  with  a  certain  brand 
of  tobacco  because  its  receptacle  is  popular  with 
wrens.  Also  he  cultivated  a  taste  for  waffles — which 
at  first  by  a  sad  distortion  of  nature  he  lacked — for 
no  other  reason  except  that  syrup  may  be  bought  in 
pretty  log-cabin  tins  particularly  suited  for  bluebirds. 
If  you  chance  to  breakfast  with  him,  he  urges  the 
syrup  on  you  with  pleasant  and  insistent  hospitality. 
With  satisfaction  he  drains  a  can.  By  June  he  has 
a  dozen  of  these  empty  cabins  on  the  shelf  alongside 
his  country  boots.  Time  was  when  he  was  lean  of 
girth — as  becomes  an  accountant,  who  is  hinged 
dyspeptically  all  day  across  his  desk — but  by  this 
agreeable  stowage  he  has  now  grown  to  plumpness. 
When  in  the  country  Colum  rises  early  in  order  to 
stretch  the  pleasures  of  the  day,  and  he  walks  about 
before  breakfast  from  tree  to  tree  to  view  his  feath 
ered  tenants.  He  has  even  acquired,  after  much 
practice,  the  knack  of  chirping — a  hissing  conjunc 
tion  of  the  lips  and  teeth — which  he  is  confident  wins 
the  friendly  attention  of  the  birds. 

Flint  heard  Colum  impatiently,  and  interrupted 
before  he  was  done.  "Pooh!"  he  said.  "There's  mud 
in  the  country,  and  not  much  of  any  plumbing,  and 
in  the  morning  it's  cold  until  you  light  a  fire." 

"Of  course,"  said  Colum.    "But  I  love  it.    Perhaps 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


you  remember,  Flint,  the  old  willow  stump  out  near 
the  road.  I  put  a  Barking  Dog  on  top  of  it,  and  now 
there's  a  family  of  wrens  inside." 

"Nonsense,"  said  Flint.  "There  is  too  much  cli 
mate  in  the  country — much  more  than  in  town.  It's 
either  too  hot  or  too  cold.  And  it's  lonely.  As  for 
you,  Colum,  you're  sentimental  about  your  bird- 
houses.  And  you  dislike  your  job.  You  like  the 
country  merely  because  it  is  a  symbol  of  a  holiday. 
It  is  freedom  from  an  irksome  task.  It  means  a 
closing  of  your  desk.  But  if  you  had  to  live  in  the 
country,  you  would  grumble  in  a  month's  time.  Even 
a  bullfrog — and  he  is  brought  up  to  it,  poor  wretch — 
croaks  at  night." 

Colum  interrupted.  "That's  not  true,  Flint.  I 
know  I'd  like  it — to  live  on  a  farm  and  keep  chickens. 
Sometimes  in  winter,  or  more  often  in  spring,  I  can 
hardly  wait  for  summer  and  my  two  weeks.  I  look 
out  of  the  window  and  I  see  a  mirage — trees  and 
hills."  Colum  sighed.  "It's  quite  wonderful,  that 
view,  but  it  unsettles  me  for  my  ledger." 

"That's  it,"  broke  in  Flint.  "Your  sentimentality 
spoils  your  happiness.  You  let  two  weeks  poison  the 
other  fifty.  It's  immoral." 

Colum  was  about  to  retort,  when  he  was  antici 
pated  by  a  new  speaker.  It  was  Quill,  the  journalist, 
who  has  long  thin  fingers  and  indigestion.  At  meals 
he  pecks  suspiciously  at  his  plate,  and  he  eats  food 
substitutes.  Quill  runs  a  financial  supplement,  or 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLIDAY  93 

something  of  that  kind,  to  a  daily  paper.  He  always 
knows  whether  Steel  is  strong  and  whether  Copper 
is  up  or  down.  If  you  call  on  him  at  his  office,  he 
glances  at  you  for  a  moment  before  he  knows  you. 
Yet  in  his  slippers  he  grows  human. 

"I  like  the  country,  too,"  he  interposed,  "and  no 
one  ever  said  that  I  am  sentimental."  He  tapped 
his  head.  "I'm  as  hard  as  nails  up  here."  Quill 
cracked  his  knuckles  in  a  disagreeable  habit  he  has, 
and  continued:  "I  have  a  shack  on  the  West  Shore, 
and  I  go  there  week-ends.  My  work  is  so  confining 
that  if  I  didn't  get  to  the  country  once  in  a  while,  I 
would  play  out  in  a  jiffy.  I'm  a  nervous  frazzle — a 
nervous  frazzle — by  Saturday  noon.  But  I  lie  on 
the  grass  all  Sunday,  and  if  nobody  snaps  at  me  and 
I  am  let  alone,  by  Monday  morning  I  am  fit  again." 

"You  must  be  like  Antaeus." 

This  remark  came  from  Wurm,  our  host.  Wurm 
is  a  bookish  fellow  who  wears  great  rimmed  glasses. 
He  spends  much  of  his  time  in  company  thinking  up 
apposite  quotations  and  verifying  them.  He  has 
worn  out  two  Bartlett's.  Wurm  is  also  addicted  to 
maps  and  dictionaries,  and  is  a  great  reader  of  special 
articles.  Consequently  his  mind  is  a  pound  for  stray 
collarless  facts;  or  rather,  in  its  variety  of  contents, 
it  more  closely  resembles  a  building  contractor's 
back  yard — odd  salvage — rejected  doors — a  job  of 
window-frames — a  pile  of  bricks  for  chipping — dis 
carded  plumbing — broken  junk  gathered  here  and 


94  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


there.  Mr.  Aust  himself,  a  building  contractor  who 
once  lived  on  our  street — a  man  of  no  broad  fame — 
quite  local — surely  unknown  to  you — did  not  collect 
so  wide  a  rubbish. 

However,  despite  these  qualities,  Wurm  is  rather 
a  pleasant  and  harmless  bit  of  cobweb.  For  a  liveli 
hood,  he  sits  in  a  bank  behind  a  grill.  At  noon  he 
eats  his  lunch  in  his  cage,  and  afterwards  with  a 
rubber  band  he  snaps  at  the  flies.  In  the  hunting 
season  he  kills  in  a  day  as  many  as  a  dozen  of  these 
pests  and  ranges  them  in  his  pen  tray.  On  Saturday 
afternoon  he  rummages  in  Malkan's  and  the  second 
hand  bookshops  along  Fourth  Avenue.  To  see 
Wurm  in  his  most  characteristic  pose,  is  to  see  him 
on  a  ladder,  with  one  leg  outstretched,  far  off  his  bal 
ance,  fumbling  for  a  title  with  his  finger  tips.  Surely, 
in  these  dull  alcoves,  gravity  nods  on  its  job.  Then 
he  buys  a  sour  red  apple  at  the  corner  and  pelts  home 
to  dinner.  This  is  served  him  on  a  tin  tray  by  his 
stout  landlady  who  comes  puffing  up  the  stairs.  It 
is  a  bit  of  pleasant  comedy  that  whatever  dish  is 
served  happens  to  be  the  very  one  of  which  he  was 
thinking  as  he  came  out  of  the  bank.  By  this  inno 
cent  device  he  is  popular  with  his  landlady  and  she 
skims  the  milk  for  him. 

Wurm  rapped  his  pipe  bowl  on  the  arm  of  his 
chair.  "You  must  be  like  Antaeus,"  he  replied. 

"Like  what?"  asked  Flint. 

"Antseus — the    fellow    who    wrestled    with    Her- 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLIDAY  95 

cules.  Each  time  that  Antaeus  was  thrown  against 
the  earth  his  strength  was  doubled.  He  was  finally 
in  the  way  of  overcoming  Hercules,  when  Hercules 
by  seizing  him  around  the  middle  lifted  him  off  the 
ground.  By  this  strategy  he  deprived  him  of  all  con 
tact  with  the  earth,  and  presently  Anteus  weakened 
and  was  vanquished." 

"That's  me,"  said  Quill,  the  journalist.  "If  I 
can't  get  back  to  my  shack  on  Sunday,  I  feel  that 
Hercules  has  me,  too,  around  the  middle." 

"Perhaps  I  can  find  the  story,"  said  Wurm,  his  eye 
running  toward  the  bookshelves. 

"Don't  bother,"  said  Flint. 

There  was  now  another  speaker — Flannel  Shirt, 
as  we  called  him — who  had  once  been  sated  with 
formal  dinners  and  society,  and  is  now  inclined  to 
cry  them  down.  He  leans  a  bit  toward  socialism  and 
free  verse.  He  was  about  to  praise  the  country  for 
its  freedom  from  sordidness  and  artificiality,  when 
Flint,  who  had  heard  him  before,  interrupted. 

"Rubbish!"  he  cried  out.  "All  of  you,  but  in  dif 
ferent  ways,  are  slaves  to  an  old  tradition  kept  up  by 
Wordsworth,  who  would  himself,  doubtless,  have 
moved  to  London  except  for  the  steepness  of  the 
rents.  You  all  maintain  that  you  like  the  country, 
yet  on  one  excuse  or  another  you  live  in  the  city  and 
growl  about  it.  There  isn't  a  commuter  among  you. 
Honest  folk,  these  commuters,  with  marrow  in  their 
bones — a  steak  in  a  paper  bag — the  sleet  in  their  faces 


96  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


on  the  ferryboat.  I  am  the  only  one  who  admits  that 
he  lives  in  the  city  because  he  prefers  it.  The  country 
is  good  enough  to  read  about — I  like  it  in  books — 
but  I  choose  to  sit  meantime  with  my  feet  on  a  city 
fender." 

Here  Wurm  broke  in  again.  "I  see,  Flint,"  he 
said,  "that  you  have  been  reading  Leslie  Stephen." 

Flint  denied  it. 

"Well,  anyway,  you  have  quoted  him.  Let  me 
read  you  a  bit  of  his  essay  on  'Country  Books.' ' 

Flint  made  a  grimace.  "Wurm  always  has  a 
favorite  passage." 

Wurm  went  to  a  shelf  and  took  down  a  volume. 
He  blew  off  the  dust  and  smoothed  its  sides. 
"Listen  to  this!"  he  said.  "Picked  up  the  volume  at 
Schulte's,  on  the  twenty-five  cent  table.  *A  love  of 
the  country  is  taken,'  "  he  read,  "  'I  know  not  why, 
to  indicate  the  presence  of  all  the  cardinal  vir 
tues.  .  .  .  We  assert  a  taste  for  sweet  and  innocent 
pleasures  and  an  indifference  to  the  feverish  excite 
ments  of  artificial  society.  I,  too,  like  the  coun 
try,  .  .  .'  (you'll  like  this,  Flint)  'but  I  confess — to 
be  duly  modest — that  I  love  it  best  in  books.  In  real 
life  I  have  remarked  that  it  is  frequently  damp  and 
rheumatic,  and  most  hated  by  those  who  know  it 
best.  .  .  .  Though  a  cockney  in  grain,  I  love  to  lean 
upon  the  farmyard  gate;  to  hear  Mrs.  Poyser  give 
a  bit  of  her  mind  to  the  squire;  to  be  lulled  into  a 
placid  doze  by  the  humming  of  Dorlecote  Mill ;  to  sit 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLIDAY  97 

down  in  Dandle  Dinmont's  parlour  ...  or  to  drop 
into  the  kitchen  of  a  good  old  country  inn,  and  to 
smoke  a  pipe  with  Tom  Jones  or  listen  to  the  simple- 
minded  philosophy  of  Parson  Adams/  ' 

"You  hit  on  a  good  one  then,"  said  Flint.  "And 
now  as  I  was  saying — " 

Wurm  interposed.  "Just  a  moment,  Flint!  You 
think  that  that  quotation  supports  your  side  of  the 
discussion.  Not  at  all.  It  shows  merely  that  some 
times  we  get  greater  reality  from  books  than  we  get 
from  life.  Leslie  Stephen  liked  the  real  country, 
also.  In  his  holidays  he  climbed  the  Swiss  moun 
tains — wrote  a  book  about  them — it's  on  that  top 
shelf.  Don't  you  remember  how  he  loved  to  roll 
stones  off  a  cliff  ?  And  as  a  pedestrian  he  was  almost 
as  famous  as  George  Borrow — walked  the  shirt  off 
his  back  before  his  college  trustees  and  all  that  sort 
of  thing.  But  he  got  an  even  sharper  reality  from 
books.  He  liked  the  city,  too,  but  in  many  a  mood, 
there's  no  doubt  about  it,  he  preferred  to  walk  to 
Charing  Cross  with  Doctor  Johnson  in  a  book, 
rather  than  to  jostle  on  the  actual  pavement  outside 
his  door." 

"Speed  up,  Wurm!"  This  from  Quill,  the  jour 
nalist.  "Inch  along,  old  caterpillar!" 

"As  far  as  I  am  concerned,"  Wurm  continued,  "I 
would  rather  go  with  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  to  see 
The  Battle  of  Hexham  in  their  gallery  than  to  any 
show  in  Times  Square.  I  love  to  think  of  that  fine 


98  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

old  pair  climbing  up  the  stairs,  carefully  at  the  turn, 
lest  they  tread  on  a  neighbor's  heels.  Then  the 
pleasant  gallery,  with  its  great  lantern  to  light  their 
expectant  faces!" 

Wurm's  eyes  strayed  again  wistfully  to  his  shelves. 
Flint  stayed  him.  "And  so  you  think  that  it  is  pos 
sible  to  see  life  completely  in  a  mirror." 

"By  no  means,"  Wurm  returned.  "We  must  see 
it  both  ways.  Nor  am  I,  as  you  infer,  in  any  sense 
like  the  Lady  of  Shalott.  A  great  book  cannot  be 
compared  to  a  mirror.  There  is  no  genius  in  a  mirror. 
It  merely  reflects  the  actual,  and  slightly  darkened. 
A  great  book  shows  life  through  the  medium  of  an 
individuality.  The  actual  has  been  lifted  into  truth. 
Divinity  has  passed  into  it  through  the  unobstructed 
channel  of  genius." 

Here  Flint  broke  in.  "Divinity — genius — the 
Swiss  Alps — The  Battle  of  Hexham — what  have  they 
to  do  with  Quill's  shack  out  in  Jersey  or  Colum's 
dirty  birdhouses?  You  jump  the  track,  Wurm. 
When  everybody  is  heading  for  the  main  tent,  you 
keep  running  to  the  side-shows." 

Quill,  the  journalist,  joined  the  banter.  "You  re 
mind  me,  Wurm — I  hate  to  say  it — of  what  a  sea 
captain  once  said  to  me  when  I  tried  to  loan  him  a 
book.  'ReadinY  he  said,  'readin'  rots  the  mind.' ' 

It  was  Colum's  turn  to  ask  a  question.  "What  do 
you  do,  Flint,"  he  asked,  "when  you  have  a  holiday?" 

"Me?    Well,  I  don't  run  off  to  the  country  as  if 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLIDAY  99 

the  city  were  afire  and  my  coat-tails  smoked.  And 
I  don't  sentimentalize  on  the  evils  of  society.  And 
I  don't  sit  and  blink  in  the  dark,  and  moon  around 
on  a  shelf  and  wear  out  books.  I  go  outdoors.  I 
walk  around  and  look  at  things — shop  windows  and 
all  that,  when  the  merchants  leave  their  curtains  up. 
I  walk  across  the  bridges  and  spit  off.  Then  there's 
the  Bronx  and  the  Battery,  with  benches  where  one 
may  make  acquaintances.  People  are  always  more 
communicative  when  they  look  out  on  the  water. 
The  last  time  I  sat  there  an  old  fellow  told  me  about 
himself,  his  wife,  his  victrola  and  his  saloon.  I  talk 
to  a  good  many  persons,  first  and  last,  or  I  stand 
around  until  they  talk  to  me.  So  many  persons  wear 
blinders  in  the  city.  They  don't  know  how  wonderful 
it  is.  Once,  on  Christmas  Eve,  I  pretended  to  shop 
on  Fourteenth  Street,  just  to  listen  to  the  crowd  on 
its  final  round — mother's  carpet  sweeper,  you  under 
stand,  or  a  drum  for  the  heir.  A  crowd  on  Christmas 
is  different — it's  gayer — reckless — it's  an  exalted 
Saturday  night.  Afterwards  I  heard  Midnight  Mass 
at  the  Russian  Cathedral.  Then  there  are  always 
ferryboats — the  band  on  the  boat  to  Staten  Island — 
God!  What  music!  Tugs  and  lights.  I  would  like 
to  know  a  tug — intimately.  If  more  people  were 
like  tugs  we'd  have  less  rotten  politics.  Wall  Street 
on  a  holiday  is  fascinating.  No  one  about.  Desolate. 
But  full  of  spirits." 

Flint  took  a  fresh  cigar.    "Last  Sunday  morning 


100  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

I  walked  in  Central  Park.  There  were  all  manner 
of  toy  sailboats  on  the  pond — big  and  little — thirty 
of  them  at  the  least — tipping  and  running  in  the 
breeze.  Grown  men  sail  them.  They  set  them  on  a 
course,  and  then  they  trot  around  the  pond  and  wait 
for  them.  Presently  I  was  curious.  A  man  upward 
of  fifty  had  his  boat  out  on  the  grass  and  was  adjust 
ing  the  rigging. 

'That's  quite  a  boat/  I  began. 

"  'It's  not  a  bad  tub,'  he  answered. 

'  'Do  you  hire  it  from  the  park  department?'  I 
asked. 

"  'No!'  with  some  scorn. 
'Where  do  you  buy  them?' 

"  'We  don't  buy  them.' 

"  'Then  how—?'  I  started. 

"  'We  make  'em — nights.' 

"He  resumed  his  work.  The  boat  was  accurately 
and  beautifully  turned — hollow  inside — with  a  deck 
of  glossy  wood.  The  rudder  was  controlled  by  finest 
tackle  and  hardware.  Altogether,  it  was  as  delicately 
wrought  as  a  violin. 

1  'It's  this  way!' — its  builder  and  skipper  laid 
down  his  pipe — 'There  are  about  thirty  of  us  boys 
who  are  dippy  about  boats.  We  can't  afford  real 
boats,  so  we  make  these  little  ones.  Daytimes  I  am 
an  interior  decorator.  This  is  a  thirty-six.  Next 
winter — if  my  wife  will  stand  the  muss  (My  God! 
How  it  litters  up  the  dining-room!)  I  am  going  to 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLWAY          \  £  W1 

build  a  forty-two.  All  of  the  boys  bring  out  a  new 
boat  each  spring!'  The  old  fellow  squinted  at  his 
mast  and  tightened  a  cord.  Then  he  continued.  'If 
you  are  interested,  come  around  any  Sunday  morning 
until  the  pond  is  frozen.  And  if  you  want  to  try 
your  hand  at  a  boat  this  winter,  just  ask  any  of  us 
boys  and  we  will  help  you.  Your  first  boat  or  two 
will  be  sad — Ju  -  das!  But  you  will  learn.' ' 

Flint  was  interrupted  by  Quill.  "Isn't  that  rather 
a  silly  occupation  for  grown  men?" 

"It's  not  an  occupation,"  said  Flint.  "It's  an  avo 
cation,  and  it  isn't  silly.  Any  one  of  us  would  enjoy 
it,  if  he  weren't  so  self-conscious.  And  it's  more 
picturesque  than  golf  and  takes  more  skill.  And 
what  courtesy!  These  men  form  what  is  really  a 
club — a  club  in  its  primitive  and  true  sense.  And  I 
was  invited  to  be  one  of  them." 

Flannel  Shirt  broke  in.  "By  George,  that  was 
courtesy.  If  you  had  happened  on  a  polo  player  at 
his  club — a  man  not  known  to  you — he  wouldn't  have 
invited  you  to  come  around  and  bring  your  pony  for 
instruction." 

"It's  not  an  exact  comparison,  is  it,  Old  Flannel 
Shirt?" 

"No,  maybe  not." 

There  was  a  pause.  It  was  Flint  who  resumed. 
"I  rather  like  to  think  of  that  interior  decorator  litter 
ing  up  his  dining-room  every  night — clamps  and  glue- 
pots  on  the  sideboard — hardly  room  for  the  sugar- 


10%  CmM^EY-POT  PAPERS 


bowl  —  lumber  underneath  —  and  then  bringing  out  a 
new  boat  in  the  spring." 

Wurm  looked  up  from  the  couch.  "Stevenson," 
he  said,  "should  have  known  that  fellow.  He  would 
have  found  him  a  place  among  his  Lantern  Bearers." 

Flint  continued.  "From  the  pond  I  walked  down 
Fifth  Avenue." 

"It's  Fifth  Avenue,"  said  Flannel  Shirt,  "every 
thing  up  above  Fifty-ninth  Street  —  and  what  it 
stands  for,  that  I  want  to  get  away  from." 

"Easy,  Flannel  Shirt,"  said  Flint.  "Fifth  Avenue 
doesn't  interest  me  much  either.  It's  too  lonely. 
Everybody  is  always  away.  The  big  stone  buildings 
aren't  homes:  they  are  points  of  departure,  as  some 
body  called  them.  And  they  were  built  for  kings 
and  persons  of  spacious  lives,  but  they  have  been  sub 
let  to  smaller  folk.  Or  does  no  one  live  inside?  You 
never  see  a  curtain  stir.  There  is  never  a  face  at  a 
window.  Everything  is  stone  and  dead.  One  might 
think  that  a  Gorgon  had  gone  riding  on  a  'bus  top, 
and  had  thrown  his  cold  eye  upon  the  house  fronts." 
Flint  paused.  "How  can  one  live  obscurely,  as  these 
folk  do,  in  the  twilight,  in  so  beautiful  a  shell?  Even 
a  crustacean  sometimes  shows  his  nose  at  his  door. 
And  yet  what  a  wonderful  street  it  would  be  if  per 
sons  really  lived  there,  and  looked  out  of  their  win 
dows,  and  sometimes,  on  clear  days,  hung  their 
tapestries  and  rugs  across  the  outer  walls.  Actually," 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLIDAY  103 

added  Flint,  "I  prefer  to  walk  on  the  East  Side.  It 
is  gayer." 

"There  is  poverty,  of  course,"  he  went  on  after  a 
moment,  "and  suffering.  But  the  streets  are  not 
depressing.  They  have  fun  on  the  East  Side.  There 
are  so  many  children  and  there  is  no  loneliness.  If 
the  street  is  blessed  with  a  standpipe,  it  seems  de 
signed  as  a  post  for  leaping.  Any  vacant  wall— if 
the  street  is  so  lucky — serves  for  a  game.  There  is 
baseball  on  the  smooth  pavement,  or  if  one  has  a  piece 
of  chalk,  he  can  lay  out  a  kind  of  hopscotch — not 
stretched  out,  for  there  isn't  room,  but  rolled  up  like 
a  jelly  cake.  One  must  hop  to  the  middle  and  out 
again.  Or  perhaps  one  is  an  artist  and  with  a  crayon 
he  spends  his  grudge  upon  an  enemy — these  drawings 
can  be  no  likeness  of  a  friend.  Or  love  guides  the 
chalky  fingers.  And  all  the  time  slim-legged  girls 
sit  on  curb  and  step  and  act  as  nursemaids  to  the 
younger  fry." 

"But,  my  word,  what  smells!" 

"Yes,  of  course,  and  not  very  pleasant  smells. 
Down  on  these  streets  we  can  learn  what  dogs  think 
of  us.  But  every  Saturday  night  on  Grand  Street 
there  is  a  market.  I  bought  a  tumbler  of  little  nuts 
from  an  old  woman.  They  aren't  much  good  to  eat — 
wee  nuts,  all  shell — and  they  still  sit  in  the  kitchen 
getting  dusty.  It  was  raining  when  I  bought  them 
and  the  woman's  hair  was  streaked  in  her  face,  but  she 
didn't  mind.  There  were  pent  roofs  over  all  the  carts. 


104  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

Everything  on  God's  earth  was  for  sale.  On  the  cart 
next  to  my  old  woman's,  there  was  hardware — 
sieves,  cullenders — kitchen  stuff.  And  ©n  the  next, 
wearing  gear,  with  women's  stockings  hung  on  a  rope 
at  the  back.  A  girl  came  along  carrying  a  pair  of 
champagne-colored  shoes,  looking  for  stockings  to 
match.  Quite  a  belle.  Somebody's  girl.  Quill,  go 
down  there  on  a  Saturday  night.  It  will  make  a 
column  for  your  paper.  I  wonder  if  that  girl  found 
her  stockings.  A  black-eyed  Italian. 

"But  what  I  like  best  are  the  windows  on  the  East 
Side.  No  one  there  ever  says  that  his  house  is  his 
castle.  On  the  contrary  it  is  his  point  of  vantage — 
his  outlook — his  prospect.  His  house  front  never 
dozes.  Windows  are  really  windows,  places  to  look 
out  of — not  openings  for  household  exhibits — orna 
mental  lamps  or  china  things — at  every  window  there 
is  a  head — somebody  looking  on  the  world.  There  is 
a  pleasant  gossip  across  the  fire-escapes — a  recipe 
for  onions — a  hint  of  fashion — a  cure  for  rheuma 
tism.  The  street  bears  the  general  life.  The  home 
is  the  street,  not  merely  the  crowded  space  within  four 
walls.  The  street  is  the  playground  and  the  club — 
the  common  stage,  and  these  are  the  galleries  and 
boxes.  We  come  again  close  to  the  beginning  of 
the  modern  theatre — an  innyard  with  windows  round 
about.  The  play  is  shinny  in  the  gutters.  Venders 
come  and  go,  selling  fruit  and  red  suspenders.  An 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLIDAY  105 

ice  wagon  clatters  off,  with  a  half-dozen  children  on 
its  tailboard." 

Flint  flecked  his  ashes  on  the  floor.  "I  wonder," 
he  said  at  length,  "that  those  persons  who  try  to  tempt 
these  people  out  of  the  congested  city  to  farms,  don't 
see  how  falsely  they  go  about  it.  They  should  repro 
duce  the  city  in  miniature — a  dozen  farmhouses  must 
be  huddled  together  to  make  a  snug  little  town,  where 
all  the  children  may  play  and  where  the  women,  as 
they  work,  may  talk  across  the  windows.  They  must 
build  villages  like  the  farming  towns  of  France. 

"But  where  can  one  be  so  stirred  as  on  the  wharves? 
From  here  even  the  narrowest  fancy  reaches  out  to 
the  four  watery  corners  of  the  earth.  No  nose  is  so 
green  and  country-bred  that  it  doesn't  sniff  the  spices 
of  India.  Great  ships  lie  in  the  channel  camouflaged 
with  war.  If  we  could  forget  the  terror  of  the  sub 
marine,  would  not  these  lines  and  stars  and  colors 
appear  to  us  as  symbols  of  the  strange  mystery  of 
the  far-off  seas? 

"Or  if  it  is  a  day  of  sailing,  there  are  a  thousand 
barrels,  oil  maybe,  ranged  upon  the  wharf,  standing 
at  fat  attention  to  go  aboard.  Except  for  numbers 
it  might  appear — although  I  am  rusty  at  the  legend — 
that  in  these  barrels  Ali  Baba  has  hid  his  forty  thieves 
for  roguery  when  the  ship  is  out  to  sea.  Doubtless 
if  one  knocked  upon  a  top  and  put  his  ear  close  upon 
a  barrel,  he  would  hear  a  villain's  guttural  voice 
inside,  asking  if  the  time  were  come. 


106  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

"Then  there  are  the  theatres  and  parks,  great 
caverns  where  a  subway  is  being  built.  There  are 
geraniums  on  window-sills,  wash  hanging  on  dizzy 
lines  (cotton  gymnasts  practicing  for  a  circus) ,  a  roar 
of  traffic  and  shrill  whistles,  men  and  women  eating — 
always  eating.  There  has  been  nothing  like  this  in 
all  the  ages.  Babylon  and  Nineveh  were  only  vil 
lages.  Carthage  was  a  crossroads.  It  is  as  though 
all  the  cities  of  antiquity  had  packed  their  bags  and 
moved  here  to  a  common  spot." 

"Please,  Flint,"  this  from  Colum,  "but  you  forget 
that  the  faces  of  those  who  live  in  the  country  are 
happier.  That's  all  that  counts." 

"Not  happier — less  alert,  that's  all — duller.  For 
contentment,  I'll  wager  against  any  farmhand  the 
old  woman  who  sells  apples  at  the  corner.  She  pol 
ishes  them  on  her  apron  with — with  spit.  There  is 
an  Italian  who  peddles  ice  from  a  handcart  on  our 
street,  and  he  never  sees  me  without  a  grin.  The  folk 
who  run  our  grocery,  a  man  and  his  wife,  seem  happy 
all  the  day.  No!  we  misjudge  the  city  and  we  have 
done  so  since  the  days  of  Wordsworth.  If  we  prized 
the  city  rightly,  we  would  be  at  more  pains  to  make 
it  better — to  lessen  its  suffering.  We  ought  to  go 
into  the  crowded  parts  with  an  eye  not  only  for  the 
poverty,  but  also  with  sympathy  for  its  beauty — its 
love  of  sunshine — the  tenderness  with  which  the  elder 
children  guard  the  younger — its  love  of  music — its 
dancing — its  naturalness.  If  we  had  this  sympathy 


ON  SPENDING  A  HOLIDAY  107 

we  could  help — ourselves,  first — and  after  that, 
maybe,  the  East  Side." 

Flint  arose  and  leaned  against  the  chimney.  He 
shook  an  accusing  finger  at  the  company.  "You, 
Colum,  ruin  fifty  weeks  for  the  sake  of  two.  You, 
Quill,  hypnotize  yourself  into  a  frazzle  by  Saturday 
noon  with  unnecessary  fret.  You  peck  over  your 
food  too  much.  A  little  clear  unmuddled  thinking 
would  straighten  you  out,  even  if  you  didn't  let  the 
ants  crawl  over  you  on  Sunday  afternoon.  Old 
Flannel  Shirt  is  blinded  by  his  spleen  against  society. 
As  for  Wurm,  he  doesn't  count.  He's  only  a  harm 
less  bit  of  mummy- wrapping." 

"And  what  are  you,  Flint?"  asked  Quill. 

"Me?    A  rational  man,  I  hope." 

"You — you  are  an  egotist.    That's  what  you  are." 

"Very  well,"  said  Flint.    "It's  just  as  you  say." 

There  was  a  red  flash  from  the  top  of  the  Metro 
politan  Tower.  Flint  looked  at  his  watch.  "So?" 
he  said,  "I  must  be  going." 

And  now  that  our  party  is  over  and  I  am  home  at 
last,  I  put  out  the  light  and  draw  open  the  curtains. 
Tomorrow — it  is  to  be  a  holiday — I  had  planned  to 
climb  in  the  Highlands,  for  I,  too,  am  addicted  to  the 
country.  But  perhaps — perhaps  I'll  change  my  plan 
and  stay  in  town.  I'll  take  a  hint  from  Flint.  I'll 
go  down  to  Delancey  Street  and  watch  the  chaffering 
and  buying.  What  he  said  was  true.  He  overstated 
his  position,  of  course.  Most  propagandists  do,  being 


108  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

swept  off  in  the  current  of  their  swift  conviction. 
One  should  like  both  the  city  and  the  country;  and 
the  liking  for  one  should  heighten  the  liking  for  the 
other.  Any  particular  receptiveness  must  grow  to 
he  a  general  receptiveness.  Yet,  in  the  main,  cer 
tainly,  Flint  was  right.  I'll  try  Delancey  Street,  I 
concluded,  just  this  once. 

Thousands  of  roofs  lie  below  me,  for  I  live  in  a 
tower  as  of  Teufelsdrockh.  And  many  of  them 
shield  a  bit  of  grief — darkened  rooms  where  sick  folk 
lie — rooms  where  hope  is  faint.  And  yet,  as  I  believe, 
under  these  roofs  there  is  more  joy  than  grief — more 
contentment  and  happiness  than  despair,  even  in 
these  grievous  times  of  war.  If  Quill  here  frets  him 
self  into  wakefulness  and  Colum  chafes  for  the 
coming  of  the  summer,  also  let  us  remember  that  in 
the  murk  and  shadows  of  these  rooms  there  are,  at 
the  least,  thirty  sailors  from  Central  Park — one  old 
fellow  in  particular  who,  although  the  hour  is  late, 
still  putters  with  his  boat  in  the  litter  of  his  dining- 
room.  Glue-pots  on  the  sideboard!  Clamps  among 
the  china,  and  lumber  on  the  hearth!  And  down  on 
Grand  Street,  snug  abed,  dreaming  of  pleasant  con 
quest,  sleeps  the  dark-eyed  Italian  girl.  On  a  chair 
beside  her  are  her  champagne  boots,  with  stockings 
to  match  hung  across  the  back. 


Runaway  Studies. 

IN  my  edition  of  "Elia,"  illustrated  by  Brock, 
whose  sympathetic  pen,  surely,  was  nibbed  in  days 
contemporary  with  Lamb,  there  is  a  sketch  of  a 
youth  reclining  on  a  window-seat  with  a  book  fallen 
open  on  his  knees.  He  is  clad  in  a  long  plain  garment 
folded  to  his  heels  which  carries  a  hint  of  a  cathedral 
choir  but  which,  doubtless,  is  the  prescribed  costume 
of  an  English  public  school.  This  lad  is  gazing 
through  the  casement  into  a  sunny  garden — for  the 
artist's  vague  stippling  invites  the  suspicion  of  grass 
and  trees.  Or  rather,  does  not  the  intensity  of  his 
regard  attest  that  his  nimble  thoughts  have  jumped 
the  outmost  wall?  Already  he  journeys  to  those 
peaks  and  lofty  towers  that  fringe  the  world  of 
youth — a  dizzy  range  that  casts  a  magic  border  on  his 
first  wide  thoughts,  to  be  overleaped  if  he  seek  to 
tread  the  stars. 

And  yet  it  seems  a  sleepy  afternoon.  Flowers  nod 
upon  a  shelf  in  the  idle  breeze  from  the  open  casement. 
On  the  warm  sill  a  drowsy  sunlight  falls,  as  if  the 
great  round  orb  of  day,  having  labored  to  the  top  of 
noon,  now  dawdled  idly  on  the  farther  slope.  A  cat 
dozes  with  lazy  comfort  on  the  window-seat.  Surely, 
this  is  the  cat — if  the  old  story  be  believed — the 


110  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

sleepiest  of  all  her  race,  in  whose  dull  ear  the  mouse 
dared  to  nest  and  breed. 

This  lad,  who  is  so  lost  in  thought,  is  none  other 
than  Charles  Lamb,  a  mere  stripling,  not  yet  grown 
to  his  black  small-clothes  and  sober  gaiters,  a  shrill 
squeak  of  a  boy  scarcely  done  with  his  battledore. 
And  here  he  sits,  his  cheek  upon  his  palm,  and  dreams 
of  the  future. 

But  Lamb  himself  has  written  of  this  window-seat. 
Journeying  northward  out  of  London — in  that  won 
derful  middle  age  of  his  in  which  the  Elia  papers  were 
composed — journeying  northward  he  came  once  on 
the  great  country  house  where  a  part  of  his  boyhood 
had  been  spent.  It  had  been  but  lately  given  to  the 
wreckers,  "and  the  demolition  of  a  few  weeks,"  he 
writes,  "had  reduced  it  to — an  antiquity." 

"Had  I  seen  those  brick-and-mortar  knaves  at  their 
process  of  destruction,"  he  continues,  "at  the  pluck 
ing  of  every  pannel  I  should  have  felt  the  varlets  at 
my  heart.  I  should  have  cried  out  to  them  to  spare 
a  plank  at  least  out  of  that  cheerful  store-room,  in 
whose  hot  window-seat  I  used  to  sit  and  read  Cow- 
ley,  with  the  grass-plat  before,  and  the  hum  and  flap 
pings  of  that  one  solitary  wasp  that  ever  haunted  it 
about  me — it  is  in  mine  ears  now,  as  oft  as  summer 
returns.  ..." 

I  confess 'to  a  particular  enjoyment  of  this  essay, 
with  its  memory  of  tapestried  bedrooms  setting  forth 
upon  their  walls  "the  unappeasable  prudery  of 


RUNAWAY  STUDIES  111 

Diana"  under  the  peeping  eye  of  Aetseon;  its  echoing 
galleries  once  so  dreadful  when  the  night  wind  caught 
the  candle  at  the  turn;  its  hall  of  family  portraits. 
But  chiefly  it  is  this  window-seat  that  holds  me — the 
casement  looking  on  the  garden  and  its  southern  sun 
baked  wall — the  lad  dreaming  on  his  volume  of 
Cowley,  and  leaping  the  garden  border  for  the  stars. 
These  are  the  things  that  I  admit  most  warmly  to  my 
affection. 

It  is  not  in  the  least  that  I  am  a  lover  of  Cowley, 
who  seems  an  unpleasantly  antiquated  author.  I 
would  choose,  instead,  that  the  youthful  Elia  were 
busy  so  early  with  one  of  his  favorite  Elizabethans. 
He  has  himself  hinted  that  he  read  "The  Vicar  of 
Wakefield"  in  later  days  out  of  a  tattered  copy  from 
a  circulating  library,  yet  I  would  willingly  move  the 
occasion  forward,  coincident  to  this.  And  I  suspect 
that  the  artist  Brock  is  also  indifferent  to  Cowley: 
for  has  he  not  laid  two  other  volumes  handy  on  the 
shelf  for  the  sure  time  when  Cowley  shall  grow  dull? 
Has  he  not  even  put  Cowley  flat  down  upon  his  face, 
as  if,  already  neglected,  he  had  slipped  from  the  lad's 
negligent  fingers — as  if,  indeed,  Elia's  far-striding 
meditation  were  to  him  of  higher  interest  than  the  stiff 
measure  of  any  poet? 

I  recall  a  child,  dimly  through  the  years,  that  lay 
upon  the  rug  before  the  fire  to  read  his  book,  with  his 
chin  resting  on  both  his  hands.  His  favorite  hour 
was  the  winter  twilight  before  the  family  came 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


together  for  their  supper,  for  at  that  hour  the  lamp 
lighter  went  his  rounds  and  threw  a  golden  string  of 
dots  upon  the  street.  He  drove  an  old  thin  horse  and 
he  stood  on  the  seat  of  the  cart  with  up-stretched 
taper.  But  when  the  world  grew  dark  the  flare  of 
the  fire  was  enough  for  the  child  to  read,  for  he  lay 
close  against  the  hearth.  And  as  the  shadows 
gathered  in  the  room,  there  was  one  story  chiefly,  of 
such  intensity  that  the  excitement  of  it  swept  through 
his  body  and  out  into  his  waving  legs.  Perhaps  its 
last  copy  has  now  vanished  off  the  earth.  It  dealt 
with  a  deserted  house  on  a  lonely  road,  where  chains 
clanked  at  midnight.  Lights,  too,  seemingly  not  of 
earth,  glimmered  at  the  windows,  while  groans  —  such 
was  the  dark  fancy  of  the  author  —  issued  from  a 
windy  tower.  But  there  was  one  supreme  chapter 
in  which  the  hero  was  locked  in  a  haunted  room  and 
saw  a  candle  at  a  chink  of  the  wall.  It  belonged  to 
the  villain,  who  nightly  played  there  a  ghostly  antic 
to  frighten  honest  folk  from  a  buried  treasure. 

And  in  summer  the  child  read  on  the  casement  of 
the  dining-room  with  the  window  up.  It  was  the 
height  of  a  tall  man  from  the  ground,  and  this  gave 
it  a  bit  of  dizziness  that  enhanced  the  pleasure.  This 
sill  could  be  dully  reached  from  inside,  but  the  ap 
proach  from  the  outside  was  riskiest  and  best.  For 
an  adventuring  mood  this  window  was  a  kind  of 
postern  to  the  house  for  innocent  deception,  beyond 
the  eye  of  both  the  sitting-room  and  cook.  Some- 


RUNAWAY  STUDIES  113 

times  it  was  the  bridge  of  a  lofty  ship  with  a  pilot 
going  up  and  down,  or  it  was  a  lighthouse  to  mark  a 
channel.  It  was  as  versatile  as  the  kitchen  step- 
ladder  which — on  Thursday  afternoons  when  the 
cook  was  out — unbent  from  its  sober  household  duties 
and  joined  him  as  an  equal.  But  chiefly  on  this  sill 
the  child  read  his  books  on  summer  days.  His  cousins 
sat  inside  on  chairs,  starched  for  company,  and  read 
safe  and  dimpled  authors,  but  his  were  of  a  vagrant 
kind.  There  was  one  book,  especially,  in  which  a  lad 
not  much  bigger  than  himself  ran  from  home  and 
joined  a  circus.  A  scolding  aunt  was  his  excuse. 
And  the  child  on  the  sill  chafed  at  his  own  happy 
circumstance  which  denied  him  these  adventures. 

In  a  dark  room  in  an  upper  story  of  the  house 
there  was  a  great  box  where  old  books  and  periodicals 
were  stored.  No  place  this  side  of  Cimmeria  had 
deeper  shadows.  Not  even  the  underground  stall  of 
the  neighbor's  cow,  which  showed  a  gloomy  window 
on  the  garden,  gave  quite  the  chill.  It  was  only  on 
the  brightest  days  that  the  child  dared  to  rummage 
in  this  box.  The  top  of  it  was  high  and  it  was  blind 
fumbling  unless  he  stood  upon  a  chair.  Then  he  bent 
over,  jack-knife  fashion,  until  the  upper  part  of 
him — all  above  the  legs — disappeared.  In  the  ob 
scurity — his  head  being  gone — it  must  have  seemed 
that  Solomon  lived  upon  the  premises  and  had  carried 
out  his  ugly  threat  in  that  old  affair  of  the  disputed 
child.  Then  he  lifted  out  the  papers — in  particular 


114  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

a  set  of  Leslie's  Weekly  with  battle  pictures  of  the 
Civil  War.  Once  he  discovered  a  tale  of  Jules 
Verne — a  journey  to  the  center  of  the  earth — and  he 
spread  its  chapters  before  the  window  in  the  dusty 
light. 

But  the  view  was  high  across  the  houses  of  the  city 
to  a  range  of  hills  where  tall  trees  grew  as  a  hedge 
upon  the  world.  And  it  was  the  hours  when  his  book 
lay  fallen  that  counted  most,  for  then  he  built  poems 
in  his  fancy  of  ships  at  sea  and  far-off  countries. 

It  is  by  a  fine  instinct  that  children  thus  neglect 
their  books,  whether  it  be  Cowley  or  Circus  Dick. 
When  they  seem  most  truant  they  are  the  closest 
rapt.  A  book  at  its  best  starts  the  thought  and  sends 
it  off  as  a  happy  vagrant.  It  is  the  thought  that  runs 
away  across  the  margin  that  brings  back  the  richest 
treasure. 

But  all  reading  in  childhood  is  not  happy.  It 
chanced  that  lately  in  the  long  vacation  I  explored 
a  country  school  for  boys.  It  stood  on  the  shaded 
street  of  a  pretty  New  England  village,  so  perched 
on  a  hilltop  that  it  looked  over  a  wide  stretch  of  lower 
country.  There  were  many  marks  of  a  healthful  out 
door  life — a  football  field  and  tennis  courts,  broad 
lawns  and  a  prospect  of  distant  woodland  for  a  holi 
day  excursion.  It  was  on  the  steps  of  one  of  the 
buildings  used  for  recitation  that  I  found  a  tattered 
dog-eared  remnant  of  The  Merchant  of  Venice.  So 
much  of  its  front  was  gone  that  at  the  very  first 


RUNAWAY  STUDIES  115 

of  it  Shylock  had  advanced  far  into  his  unworthy 
schemes.  Evidently  the  book,  by  its  position  at  the 
corner  of  the  steps,  had  been  thrown  out  immediately 
at  the  close  of  the  final  class,  as  if  already  it  had  been 
endured  too  long. 

In  the  stillness  of  the  abandoned  school  I  sat  for 
an  hour  and  read  about  the  choosing  of  the  caskets. 
The  margins  were  filled  with  drawings — one  possibly 
a  likeness  of  the  teacher.  Once  there  was  a  figure  in 
a  skirt — straight,  single  lines  for  legs — Jack's  girl— 
scrawled  in  evident  derision  of  a  neighbor  student's 
amatory  weakness.  There  were  records  of  baseball 
scores.  Railroads  were  drawn  obliquely  across  the 
pages,  bending  about  in  order  not  to  touch  the  words, 
with  a  rare  tunnel  where  some  word  stood  out  too 
long.  Here  and  there  were  stealthy  games  of  tit- 
tat-toe,  practiced,  doubtless,  behind  the  teacher's 
back.  Everything  showed  boredom  with  the  play. 
What  mattered  it  which  casket  was  selected!  Let 
Shylock  take  his  pound  of  flesh!  Only  let  him  whet 
his  knife  and  be  quick  about  it!  All's  one.  It's  at 
best  a  sad  and  sleepy  story  suited  only  for  a  winter's 
day.  But  now  spring  is  here — spring  that  is  the  king 
of  all  the  seasons. 

A  bee  comes  buzzing  on  the  pane.  It  flies  off  in 
careless  truantry.  The  clock  ticks  slowly  like  a  lazy 
partner  in  the  teacher's  dull  conspiracy.  Outside 
stretches  the  green  world  with  its  trees  and  hills 


116 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


and  moving  clouds.     There  is  a  river  yonder  with 
swimming-holes.    A  dog  barks  on  a  distant  road. 

Presently  the  lad's  book  slips  from  his  negligent 
fingers.  He  places  it  face  down  upon  the  desk.  It 
lies  disregarded  like  that  volume  of  old  Cowley  one 
hundred  years  ago.  His  eyes  wander  from  the  black 
board  where  the  Merchant's  dry  lines  are  scanned  and 
marked. 

r  r  r  r  r 

In  sooth,  I  know  not  why  I  am  so  sad. 

And  then  ...  his  thoughts  have  clambered 
through  the  window.  They  have  leaped  across  the 
schoolyard  wall.  Still  in  his  ears  he  hears  the  jogging 
of  the  Merchant — but  the  sound  grows  dim.  Like 
that  other  lad  of  long  ago,  his  thoughts  have  jumped 
the  hills.  Already,  with  giddy  stride,  they  are 
journeying  to  the  profound  region  of  the  stars. 


On  Turning  Into  Forty. 

THE  other  day,  without  any  bells  or  whistles, 
I  slipped  off  from  the  thirties.  I  felt  the  same 
sleepiness  that  morning.  There  was  no  ap 
parent  shifting  of  the  grade. 

I  am  conscious,  maybe,  that  my  agility  is  not  what 
it  was  fifteen  years  ago.  I  do  not  leap  across  the 
fences.  But  I  am  not  yet  comic.  Yonder  stout  man 
waddles  as  if  he  were  a  precious  bombard.  He  strains 
at  his  forward  buttons.  Unless  he  mend  his  appetite, 
his  shoes  will  be  lost  below  his  waistcoat.  Already 
their  tops  and  hulls,  like  battered  caravels,  disappear 
beneath  his  fat  horizon.  With  him  I  bear  no  fellow 
ship.  But  although  nature  has  not  stuffed  me  with 
her  sweets  to  this  thick  rotundity;  alas,  despite  of 
tubes  and  bottles,  no  shadowy  garden  flourishes  on 
my  top — waving  capillary  grasses  and  a  prim  path 
between  the  bush.  Rather,  I  bear  a  general  parade 
and  smooth  pleasance  open  to  the  glimpses  of  the 
moon. 

And  so  at  last  I  have  turned  into  the  forties.  I 
remember  now  how  heedlessly  I  had  remarked  a  small 
brisk  clock  ticking  upon  the  shelf  as  it  counted  the 
seconds — paying  out  to  me,  as  it  were,  for  my  pleas 
ure  and  expense,  the  brief  coinage  of  my  life.  I  had 
heard,  also,  unmindful  of  the  warning,  a  tall  and 


118  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

solemn  clock  as  I  lay  awake,  marking  regretfully  the 
progress  of  the  night.  And  I  had  been  told  that 
water  runs  always  beneath  the  bridge,  that  the  deepest 
roses  fade,  that  Time's  white  beard  keeps  growing 
to  his  knee.  These  phrases  of  wisdom  I  had  heard 
and  others.  But  what  mattered  them  to  me  when 
my  long  young  life  lay  stretched  before  me?  Nor  did 
the  revolving  stars  concern  me — nor  the  moon,  spring 
with  its  gaudy  brush,  nor  gray-clad  winter.  Nor  did 
I  care  how  the  wind  blew  the  swift  seasons  across  the 
earth.  Let  Time's  horses  gallop,  I  cried.  Speed! 
The  bewildering  peaks  of  youth  are  forward.  The 
inn  for  the  night  lies  far  across  the  mountains. 

But  the  seconds  were  entered  on  the  ledger.  At 
last  the  gray  penman  has  made  his  footing.  The 
great  page  turns.  I  have  passed  out  of  the  thirties. 

I  am  not  given  to  brooding  on  my  age.  It  is  only 
by  checking  the  years  on  my  fingers  that  I  am  able 
to  reckon  the  time  of  my  birth.  In  the  election  booth, 
under  a  hard  eye,  I  fumble  the  years  and  invite  sus 
picion.  Eighteen  hundred  and  seventy-eight,  I  think 
it  was.  But  even  this  salient  fact — this  milepost  on 
my  eternity — I  remember  most  quickly  by  the  recol 
lection  of  a  jack-knife  acquired  on  my  tenth  birthday. 
By  way  of  celebration  on  that  day,  having  selected 
the  longest  blade,  I  cut  the  date — 1888 — in  the 
kitchen  woodwork  with  rather  a  pretty  flourish  when 
the  cook  was  out.  The  swift  events  that  followed  the 
discovery — the  dear  woman  paddled  me  with  a  great 


ON  TURNING  INTO  FORTY  119 

spoon  through  the  door — fastened  the  occurrence  in 
my  memory. 

It  was  about  the  year  of  the  jack-knife  that  there 
lived  in  our  neighborhood  a  bad  boy  whose  name  was 
Elmer.  I  would  have  quite  forgotten  him  except 
that  I  met  him  on  the  pavement  a  few  weeks  ago.  He 
was  the  bully  of  our  street — a  towering  rogue  with 
red  hair  and  one  suspender.  I  remember  a  chronic 
bandage  which  he  shifted  from  toe  to  toe.  This  lad 
was  of  larger  speech  than  the  rest  of  us  and  he  could 
spit  between  his  teeth.  He  used  to  snatch  the  caps 
of  the  younger  boys  and  went  off  with  our  baseball 
across  the  fences.  He  was  wrapped,  too,  in  mystery, 
and  it  was  rumored — softly  from  ear  to  ear — that 
once  he  had  been  arrested  and  taken  to  the  station- 
house. 

And  yet  here  he  was,  after  all  these  years,  not  a 
bearded  brigand  with  a  knife  sticking  from  his  boot, 
but  a  mild  undersized  man,  hat  in  hand,  smiling  at 
me  with  pleasant  cordiality.  His  red  hair  had  faded 
to  a  harmless  carrot.  From  an  overtopping  rascal 
he  had  dwindled  to  my  shoulder.  It  was  as  strange 
and  incomprehensible  as  if  the  broken  middle-aged 
gentleman,  my  familiar  neighbor  across  the  street  who 
nods  all  day  upon  his  step,  were  pointed  out  to  me  as 
Captain  Kidd  retired.  Can  it  be  that  all  villains 
come  at  last  to  a  slippered  state?  Does  Dick  Turpin 
of  the  King's  highway  now  falter  with  crutch  along 
a  garden  path?  And  Captain  Singleton,  now  that 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


his  last  victim  has  walked  the  plank  —  does  he  doze 
on  a  sunny  bench  beneath  his  pear  tree?  Is  no 
blood  or  treasure  left  upon  the  earth  ?  Do  all  rascals 
lose  their  teeth?  "Good  evening,  Elmer,"  I  said,  "it 
has  been  a  long  time  since  we  have  met."  And  I  left 
him  agreeable  and  smiling. 

No,  certainly  I  do  not  brood  upon  my  age.  Except 
for  a  gift  I  forget  my  birthday.  It  is  only  by  an 
effort  that  I  can  think  of  myself  as  running  toward 
middle  age.  If  I  meet  a  stranger,  usually,  by  a 
pleasant  deception,  I  think  myself  the  younger,  and 
because  of  an  old-fashioned  deference  for  age  I  bow 
and  scrape  in  the  doorway  for  his  passage. 

Of  course  I  admit  a  suckling  to  be  my  junior.  A 
few  days  since  I  happened  to  dine  at  one  of  the 
Purple  Pups  of  our  Greenwich  Village.  At  my  table, 
which  was  slashed  with  yellow  and  blue  in  the  fashion 
of  these  places,  sat  a  youth  of  seventeen  who  engaged 
me  in  conversation.  Plainly,  even  to  my  blindness, 
he  was  younger  than  myself.  The  milk  was  scarcely 
dry  upon  his  mouth.  He  was,  by  his  admission  across 
the  soup,  a  writer  of  plays  and  he  had  received  al 
ready  as  many  as  three  pleasant  letters  of  rejection. 
He  flared  with  youth.  Strange  gases  and  opinion 
burned  in  his  speech.  His  breast  pocket  bulged  with 
manuscript,  for  reading  at  a  hint. 

I  was  poking  at  my  dumpling  when  he  asked  me 
if  I  were  a  socialist.  No,  I  replied.  Then  perhaps 
I  was  an  anarchist  or  a  Bolshevist,  he  persisted. 


ON  TURNING  INTO  FORTY 


N-no,  I  answered  him,  sadly  and  slowly,  for  I  fore 
saw  his  scorn.  He  leaned  forward  across  the  table. 
Begging  my  pardon  for  an  intrusion  in  my  affairs, 
he  asked  me  if  I  were  not  aware  that  the  world  was 
slipping  away  from  me.  God  knows.  Perhaps.  I 
had  come  frisking  to  that  restaurant.  I  left  it  broken 
and  decrepit.  The  youngster  had  his  manuscripts 
and  his  anarchy.  He  held  the  wriggling  world  by  its 
futuristic  tail.  It  was  not  my  world,  to  be  sure,  but 
it  was  a  gay  world  and  daubed  with  color. 

And  yet,  despite  this  humiliating  encounter,  I  feel 
quite  young.  Something  has  passed  before  me  that 
may  be  Time.  The  summers  have  come  and  gone. 
There  is  snow  on  the  pavement  where  I  remember 
rain.  I  see,  if  I  choose,  the  long  vista  of  the  years, 
with  diminishing  figures,  and  tin  soldiers  at  the  start. 
Yet  I  doubt  if  I  am  growing  older.  To  myself  I 
seem  younger  than  in  my  twenties.  In  the  twenties 
we  are  quite  commonly  old.  We  bear  the  whole 
weight  of  society.  The  world  has  been  waiting  so 
long  for  us  and  our  remedies.  In  the  twenties  we 
scorn  old  authority.  We  let  Titian  and  Keats  go 
drown  themselves.  We  are  skeptical  in  religion,  and 
before  our  unrelenting  iron  throne  immortality  and 
all  things  of  faith  plead  in  vain.  Although  I  can 
show  still  only  a  shabby  inventory,  certainly  I  would 
not  exchange  myself  for  that  other  self  in  the  twenties. 
I  have  acquired  in  these  last  few  years  a  less  narrow 
sympathy  and  a  belief  that  some  of  my  colder  reasons 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


may  be  wrong.  Nor  would  I  barter  certain  knacks 
of  thoughts — serious  and  humorous — for  the  renewed 
ability  to  leap  across  a  five-foot  bar.  I  am  less  fearful 
of  the  world  and  its  accidents.  I  have  less  embarrass 
ment  before  people.  I  am  less  moody.  I  tack  and 
veer  less  among  my  betters  for  some  meaner  profit. 
Surely  I  am  growing  younger. 

I  seem  to  remember  reading  a  story  in  which  a 
scientist  devised  a  means  of  reversing  the  direction 
of  the  earth.  Perhaps  an  explosion  of  gases  back 
fired  against  the  east.  Perhaps  he  built  a  monstrous 
lever  and  contrived  the  moon  to  be  his  fulcrum.  Any 
way,  here  at  last  was  the  earth  spinning  backward  in 
its  course — the  spring  preceding  winter — the  sun 
rising  in  the  west — one  o'clock  going  before  twelve- 
soup  trailing  after  nuts — the  seed-time  following 
upon  the  harvest.  And  so  it  began  to  appear — so 
ran  the  story — that  human  life,  too,  was  reversed. 
Persons  came  into  the  world  as  withered  grandames 
and  as  old  gentlemen  with  gold-headed  canes,  and 
then  receded  like  crabs  backward  into  their  maturity, 
then  into  their  adolescence  and  babyhood.  To  return 
from  a  protracted  voyage  wras  to  find  your  younger 
friends  sunk  into  pinafores.  But  the  story  was  really 
too  ridiculous. 

But  in  these  last  few  years  no  doubt  I  do  grow 
younger.  The  great  camera  of  the  Master  rolls  its 
moving  pictures  backward.  Perhaps  I  am  only 
thirty-eight  now  that  the  direction  is  reversed. 


ON  TURNING  INTO  FORTY 


I  wonder  what  you  thought,  my  dear  X ,  when 

we  met  recently  at  dinner.  We  had  not  seen  one 
another  very  often  in  these  last  few  years.  Our  paths 
have  led  apart  and  we  have  not  been  even  at  shouting 
distance  across  the  fields.  It  is  needless  to  remind 
you,  I  hope,  that  I  once  paid  you  marked  attention. 
It  began  when  we  were  boy  and  girl.  Our  friends 


124  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

talked,  you  will  recall.  You  were  then  less  than  a 
year  younger  than  myself,  although  no  doubt  you 
have  since  lost  distance.  What  a  long  time  I  spent 
upon  my  tie  and  collar — a  stiff  high  collar  that 
almost  touched  my  ears!  Some  other  turn  of  for 
tune's  wheel — circumstance — a  shaft  of  moonlight 
(we  were  young,  my  dear) — a  white  frock — your 
acquiescence — who  knows? 

I  jilted  you  once  or  twice  for  other  girls — nothing 
formal,  of  course — but  only  when  you  had  jilted  me 
three  or  four  times.  We  once  rowed  upon  a  river  at 
night.  Did  I  take  your  hand,  my  dear?  If  I  listen 
now  I  can  hear  the  water  dripping  from  the  oar. 
There  was  darkness — and  stars — and  youth  (your 
self,  white-armed,  the  symbol  of  its  mystery).  Yes, 
perhaps  I  am  older  now. 

Was  it  not  Byron  who  wrote? 

I  am  ashes  where  once  I  was  fire, 
And  the  soul  in  my  bosom  is  dead ; 
What  I  loved  I  now  merely  admire, 
And  my  heart  is  as  gray  as  my  head. 

I  cannot  pretend  ever  to  have  had  so  fierce  a  passion, 
but  at  least  my  fire  still  burns  and  with  a  cheery  blaze. 
But  you  will  not  know  this  love  of  mine — unless,  of 
course,  you  read  this  page — and  even  so,  you  can  only 
suspect  that  I  write  of  you,  because,  my  dear,  to  be 
quite  frank,  I  paid  attention  to  several  girls  beside 
yourself. 


ON  TURNING  INTO  FORTY 


Yes,  they  say  that  I  have  come  to  the  top  of  the 
hill  and  that  henceforth  the  view  is  back  across  my 
shoulder.  I  am  counseled  that  with  a  turn  of  the 
road  I  had  hest  sit  with  my  back  to  the  horses,  for 
the  mountains  are  behind.  A  little  while  and  the 
finer  purple  will  be  showing  in  the  west.  Yet  a  little 
while,  they  say,  and  the  bewildering  peaks  of  youth 
will  be  gray  and  cold. 

Perhaps  some  of  the  greener  pleasures  are  mine 
no  longer.  Certainly,  last  night  I  went  to  the  Winter 
Garden,  but  left  bored  after  the  first  act;  and  I  had 
left  sooner  except  for  climbing  across  my  neighbors. 
I  suppose  there  are  young  popinjays  who  seriously 
affirm  that  Ziegfeld's  Beauty  Chorus  is  equal  to  the 
galaxy  of  loveliness  that  once  pranced  at  Weber  and 
Field's  when  we  came  down  from  college  on  Saturday 
night.  At  old  Coster  and  Rial's  there  was  once  a 
marvelous  beauty  who  swung  from  a  trapeze  above 
the  audience  and  scandalously  undressed  herself  down 
to  the  fifth  encore  and  her  stockings.  And,  really, 
are  there  plays  now  as  exciting  as  the  Prisoner  of 
Zenda,  with  its  great  fight  upon  the  stairs  —  three 
men  dead  and  the  tables  overturned  —  Red  Rudolph, 
in  the  end,  bearing  off  the  Princess?  Heroes  no 
longer  wear  cloak  and  sword  and  rescue  noble  ladies 
from  castle  towers. 

And  Welsh  rabbit,  that  was  once  a  passion  and  the 
high  symbol  of  extravagance,  in  these  days  has  lost 
its  finest  flavor.  In  vain  do  we  shake  the  paprika 


126  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

can.  Pop-beer  and  real  beer,  its  manly  cousin,  have 
neither  of  them  the  old  foaming  tingle  when  you  come 
off  the  water.  Yes,  already,  I  am  told,  I  am  on  the 
long  road  that  leads  down  to  the  quiet  inn  at  the 
mountain  foot.  I  am  promised,  to  be  sure,  many  wide 
prospects,  pleasant  sounds  of  wind  and  water,  and 
friendly  greetings  by  the  way.  There  will  be  a  stop 
here  and  there  for  refreshments,  a  pause  at  the  turn 
where  the  world  shows  best,  a  tightening  of  the  brake. 
Get  up,  Dobbin!  Go  'long!  And  then,  tired  and 
nodding,  at  last,  we  shall  leave  the  upland  and  enter 
the  twilight  where  all  roads  end. 

A  pleasant  picture,  is  it  not — a  grandfather  in  a 
cap — yourself,  my  dear  sir,  hugging  your  cold  shins  in 
the  chimney  corner?  Is  it  not  a  brave  end  to  a  stir 
ring  business?  Life,  you  say,  is  a  journey  up  and 
down  a  hill — aspirations  unattained  and  a  mild  re 
gret,  castles  at  dawn,  a  brisk  wind  for  the  noontide, 
and  at  night,  at  best,  the  lights  of  a  little  village,  the 
stir  of  water  on  the  stones,  and  silence. 

Is  this  true  ?  Or  do  we  not  reiterate  a  lie  ?  I  deny 
old  age.  It  is  a  false  belief,  a  bad  philosophy  dim 
ming  the  eyes  of  generations.  Men  and  women  may 
wear  caps,  but  not  because  of  age.  In  each  one's 
heart,  if  he  permit,  a  child  keeps  house  to  the  very 
end.  If  Welsh  rabbit  lose  its  flavor,  is  it  a  sign  of 
decaying  power?  I  have  yet  to  know  that  a  relish 
for  Shakespeare  declines,  or  the  love  of  one's  friends, 
or  the  love  of  truth  and  beauty.  Youth  does  not  view 


ON  TURNING  INTO  FORTY 


the  loftiest  peaks.  It  is  at  sunset  that  the  tallest 
castles  rise. 

My  dear  sir  —  you  of  seventy  or  beyond  —  if  no  rim 
of  mountains  stretches  up  before  you,  it  is  not  your 
age  that  denies  you  but  the  quality  of  your  thought. 
It  has  been  said  of  old  that  as  a  man  thinks  so  he  is, 
but  who  of  us  has  learned  the  lesson? 

The  journey  has  neither  a  beginning  nor  an  end. 
Now  is  eternity.  Our  birth  is  but  a  signpost  on  the 
road  —  our  going  hence,  another  post  to  mark  transi 
tion  and  our  progress.  The  oldest  stars  are  brief 
lamps  upon  our  way.  We  shall  travel  wisely  if  we 
see  peaks  and  castles  all  the  day,  and  hold  our  child 
hood  in  our  hearts.  Then,  when  at  last  the  night  has 
come,  we  shall  plant  our  second  post  upon  a  windy 
height  where  it  will  be  first  to  catch  the  dawn. 


On  the  Difference  Between  Wit 
and  Humor. 

I  AM  not  sure  that  I  can  draw  an  exact  line 
between  wit  and  humor.    Perhaps  the  distinction 
is  so  subtle  that  only  those  persons  can  decide 
who  have  long  white  beards.     But  even  an  ignorant 
man,  so  long  as  he  is  clear  of  Bedlam,  may  have  an 
opinion. 

I  am  quite  positive  that  of  the  two,  humor  is  the 
more  comfortable  and  more  livable  quality.  Hu 
morous  persons,  if  their  gift  is  genuine  and  not  a 
mere  shine  upon  the  surface,  are  always  agreeable 


WIT  AND  HUMOR 


companions  and  they  sit  through  the  evening  best. 
They  have  pleasant  mouths  turned  up  at  the  corners. 
To  these  corners  the  great  Master  of  marionettes  has 
fixed  the  strings  and  he  holds  them  in  his  nimblest 
fingers  to  twitch  them  at  the  slightest  jest.  But  the 
mouth  of  a  merely  witty  man  is  hard  and  sour  until 
the  moment  of  its  discharge.  .Nor  is  the  flash  from  a 
witty  man  always  comforting,  whereas  a  humorous 
man  radiates  a  general  pleasure  and  is  like  another 
candle  in  the  room. 

I  admire  wit,  but  I  have  no  real  liking  for  it.  It 
has  been  too  often  employed  against  me,  whereas  , 
humor  is  always  an  ally.  It  never  points  an  imperti 
nent  finger  into  my  defects.  Humorous  persons  do 
not  sit  like  explosives  on  a  fuse.  They  are  safe  and 
easy  comrades.  But  a  wit's  tongue  is  as  sharp  as  a 
donkey  driver's  stick.  I  may  gallop  the  faster  for  its 
proddjng,  yet  the  touch  behind  is  too  persuasive  for 
any  comfort. 

Wit  is  a  lean  creature  with  sharp  inquiring  nose, 
whereas  humor  has  a  kindly  eye  and  comfortable 
,  girth.  Wit,  if  it  be  necessary,  uses  malice  to  score  a 
point-  —  like  a  cat  it  is  quick  to  jump  —  but  humor 
keeps  the  peace  in  an  easy  chair.  Wit  has  a  better 
voice  in  a  solo,  but  humor  comes  into  the  chorus  best. 
Wit  is  as  sharp  as  a  stroke  of  lightning,  whereas 
humor  is  diffuse  like  sunlight.  Wit  keeps  the  season's 
fashions  and  is  precise  in  the  phrases  and  judgments 
of  the  day,  but  humor  is  concerned  with  homely 


130     ft/  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


eternal  things.  Wit  wears  silk,  but  humor  in  home 
spun  endures  the  wind.  Wit  sets  a  snare,  whereas 
humor  goes  off  whistling  without  a  victim  in  its  mind. 
Wit  is  sharper  company  at  table,  but  humor  serves 
better  in  mischance  and  in  the  rain.  When  it  tumbles/ 
wit  is  sour,  but  humor  goes  uncomplaining  without 
its  dinner.  Humor  laughs  at  another's  jest  and  holds 
its  sides,  while  wit  sits  wrapped  in  study  for  a  lively 
answer.  But  it  is  a  workaday  world  in  which  we 
live,  where  we  get  mud  upon  our  boots  and  come 
weary  to  the  twilight — it  is  a  world  that  grieves  and 
suffers  from  many  wounds  in  these  years  of  war :  and 
therefore  as  I  think  of  my  acquaintance,  it  is  those 
who  are  humorous  in  its  best  and  truest  meaning 
rather  than  those  who  are  witty  who  give  the  more 
profitable  companionship. 

And  then,  also,  there  is  wit  that  is  not  wit.     As~ 
someone  has  written: 

Nor  ever  noise  for  wit  on  me  could  pass, 
When  thro'  the  braying  I  discern'd  the  ass. 

I  sat  lately  at  dinner  with  a  notoriously  witty  per 
son  (a  really  witty  man)  whom  our  hostess  had 
introduced  to  provide  the  entertainment.  I  had  read 
many  of  his  reviews  of  books  and  plays,  and  while  I 
confess  their  wit  and  brilliancy,  I  had  thought  them 
to  be  hard  and  intellectual  and  lacking  in  all  that 
broader  base  of  humor  which  aims  at  truth.  His 
writing — catching  the  bad  habit  of  the  time — is  too 


WIT  AND  HUMOR  131 

ready  to  proclaim  a  paradox  and  to  assert  the  unusual, 
to  throw  aside  in  contempt  the  valuable  haystack  in 
a  fine  search  for  a  paltry  needle.  His  reviews  are  ^ 
seldom  right — as  most  of  us  see  the  right — but  they 
sparkle  and  hold  one's  interest  for  their  perversity 
and  unexpected  turns. 

In  conversation  I  found  him  much  as  I  had  found 
him  in  his  writing — although,  strictly  speaking,  it  was 
not  a  conversation,  which  requires  an  interchange  of 
word  and  idea  and  is  turn  about.  A  conversation 
should  not  be  a  market  where  one  sells  and  another 
buys.  Rather,  it  should  be  a  bargaining  back  and 
forth,  and  each  person  should  be  both  merchant  and 
buyer.  My  rubber  plant  for  your  victrola,  each 
offering  what  he  has  and  seeking  his  deficiency.  It 
was  my  friend  B""1  who  fairly  put  the  case  when  fyL 
he  said  that  he  liked  so  much  to  talk  that  he  was 
willing  to  pay  for  his  audience  by  listening  in  his  turn. 

But  this  was  a  speech  and  a  lecture.  He  loosed  on 
us  from  the  cold  spigot  of  his  intellect  a  steady  flow 
of  literary  allusion — a  practice  which  he  professes  to 
hold  in  scorn — and  wit  and  epigram.  He  seemed 
torn  from  the  page  of  Meredith.  He  talked  like  ink. 
I  had  believed  before  .that  only  people  in  books  could 
talk  as  he  did,  and  then  only  when  their  author  had 
blotted  and  scratched  their  performance  for  a  seventh 
time  before  he  sent  it  to  the  printer.  To  me  it  was 
an  entirely  new  experience,  for  my  usual  acquaint 
ances  are  good  common  honest  daytime  woollen  folk 


188  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

and  they  seldom  average  better  than  one  bright  thing 
in  an  evening. 

At  first  I  feared  that  there  might  be  a  break  in  his 
flow  of  speech  which  I  should  be  obliged  to  fill.  Once, 
when  there  was  a  slight  pause — a  truffle  was  engaging 
him — I  launched  a  frail  remark;  but  it  was  swept  off 
at  once  in  the  renewed  torrent.  And  seriously  it  does 
not  seem  fair.  If  one  speaker  insists — to  change  the 
figure — on  laying  all  the  cobbles  of  a  conversation, 
he  should  at  least  allow  another  to  carry  the  tarpot 
and  fill  in  the  chinks.  When  the  evening  was  over, 
although  I  recalled  two  or  three  clever  stories,  which 
I  shall  botch  in  the  telling,  I  came  away  tired  and 
dissatisfied,  my  tongue  dry  with  disuse. 

Now  I  would  not  seek  that  kind  of  man  as  a  com 
panion  with  whom  to  be  becalmed  in  a  sailboat,  and 
I  would  not  wish  to  go  to  the  country  with  him,  least 
of  all  to  the  North  Woods  or  any  place  outside  of 
civilization.  I  am  sure  that  he  would  sulk  if  he  were 
deprived  of  an  audience.  He  would  be  crotchety  at 
breakfast  across  his  bacon.  Certainly  for  the  woods 
a  humorous  man  is  better  company,  for  his  humor 
in  mischance  comforts  both  him  and  you.  A  hu 
morous  man — and  here  lies  the  heart  of  the  matter— 
a  humorous  man  has  the  high  gift  of  regarding  an 
annoyance  in  the  very  stroke  of  it, as  another  man 
shall  regard  it  when  the  annoyance  is  long  past.  If 
a  humorous  person  falls  out  of  a  canoe  he  knows  the 


WIT  AND  HUMOR  133 

exquisite  jest  while  his  head  is  still  bobbing  in  the 
cold  "water.  A  witty  man,  on  the  contrary,  is  sour 
until  he  is  changed  and  dry :  but  in  a  week's  time  when 
company  is  about,  he  will  make  a  comic  story  of  it. 

My  friend  A with  whom  I  went  once  into  the 

Canadian  woods  has  genuine  humor,  and  no  one  can 
be  a  more  satisfactory  comrade.  I  do  not  recall  that  - 
he  said  many  comic  things,  and  at  bottom  he  was 
serious  as  the  best  humorists  are.  But  in  him  there 
was  a  kind  of  joy  and  exaltation  that  lasted  through 
out  the  day.  If  the  duffle  were  piled  too  high  and  fell 
about  his  ears,  if  the  dinner  was  burned  or  the  tent 
blew  down  in  a  driving  storm  at  night,  he  met  these 
mishaps  as  thou|fh  they  were  the  very  things  he  had 
come  north  to  get,  as  though  without  them  the  trip 
would  have  lacked  its  spice.  This  is  an  easy  phi 
losophy  in  retrospect  but  hard  when  the  wet  canvas 
falls  across  you  and  the  rain  beats  in.  -'A.  laughed 
at  the  very  moment  of  disaster  as  another  man  will 
laugh  later  in  an  easy  chair.  I  see  him  now  swinging 
his  axe  for  firewood  to  dry  ourselves  when  we  were 
spilled  in  a  rapids ;  and  again,  while  pitching  our  tent  - 
on  a  sandy  beach  when  another  storm  had  drowned 
us.  And  there  is  a  certain  cry  of  his  (dully,  Wow! 
on  paper)  expressive  to  the  initiated  of  all  things 
gay,  which  could  never  issue  from  the  mouth  of  a 
merely  witty  man. 

Real  humor  is  primarily  human — or  divine,  to  be 


134  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


exact — and  after  that  j;he  fun  may  follow  naturally 
»-  in  its  order.  Not  long  ago  I  saw  Louis  Jouvet  of 
the  French  Company  play  Sir  Andrew  Ague- Cheek. 
It  was  a  most  humorous  performance  of  the  part,  and 
the  reason  is  that  the  actor  made  no  primary  effort 
to  be  funny.  It  was  the  humanity  of  his  playing, 
making  his  audience  love  him  first  of  all,  that  pro 
voked  the  comedy.  His  long  thin  legs  were  comical 
if  and  so  was  his  drawling  talk,  but  the  very  heart  and 
essence  was  this  love  he  started  in  his  audience.  Poor 
fellow!  how  delightfully  he  smoothed  the  feathers  in 
his  hat!  How  he  feared  to  fight  the  duel!  It  was 
easy  to  love  such  a  dear  silly  human  fellow.  A  merely 
witty  player  might  have  drawn  as  many  laughs,  but 
there  would  not  have  been  the  catching  at  the  heart. 
As  for  books  and  the  wit  or  humor  of  their  pages, 
it  appears  that  wit  fades,  whereas  humor  lasts. 
Humor  uses  permanent  nutgalls.  But  is  there  any 
thing  more  melancholy  than  the  wit  of  another 
generation?  In  the  first  place,  this  wit  is  intertwined 
with  forgotten  circumstance.  It  hangs  on  a  fashion- 
on  the  style  of  a  coat.  It  arose  from  a  forgotten  bit 
of  gossip.  In  the  play  of  words  the  sources  of  the 
pun  are  lost.  It  is  like  a  local  jest  in  a  narrow  coterie, 
barren  to  an  outsider.  Sydney  Smith  was  the  most 
celebrated  wit  of  his  day,  but  he  is  dull  reading  now. 
Blackwood's  at  its  first  issue  was  a  witty  daring  sheet, 
but  for  us  the  pages  are  stagnant.  I  suppose  that  no 
one  now  laughs  at  the  witticisms  of  Thomas  Hood. 


WIT  AND  HUMOR  135 

Where  are  the  wits  of  yesteryear?  Yet  the  humor  of 
Falstaff  and  Lamb  and  Fielding  remains  and  is  a 
reminder  to  us  that  humor,  to  be  real,  must  be 
founded  on  humanity  and  on  truth. 


On  Going  to  a  Party. 

ALTHOUGH  I  usually  enjoy  a  party  when 
I  have  arrived,  I  seldom  anticipate  it  with 
pleasure.     I  remain  sour  until  I  have  hung 
my  hat.     I  suspect  that  my  disorder  is  general  and 
that  if  any  group  of  formal  diners  could  be  caught 
in  preparation  midway  between  their  tub  and  over 
shoes,  they  would  be  found  a  peevish  company  who 
might  be  expected  to  snap  at  one  another.    Yet  look 
now  at  their  smiling  faces!     With  what  zest  they 
crunch  their  food!     How  cheerfully  they  clatter  on 
their  plates !    Who  would  suspect  that  yonder  smiling 
fellow  who  strokes  his  silky  chin  was  sullen  when  he 
fixed  his  tie;  or  that  this  pleasant  babble  comes  out 
of  mouths  that  lately  sulked  before  their  mirrors? 
I  am  not  sure  from  what  cause  my  own  crustiness 


ON  GOING  TO  A  PARTY  137 

proceeds.  I  am  of  no  essential  unsociability.  Nor 
is  it  wholly  the  masquerade  of  unaccustomed  clothes. 
I  am  deft  with  a  bow-knot  and  patient  with  my 
collar.  It  may  be  partly  a  perversity  of  sex,  inas 
much  as  we  men  are  sometimes  "taken"  by  our  women 
folk.  But  chiefly  it  comes  from  an  unwillingness  to 
pledge  the  future,  lest  on  the  very  night  my  own 
hearth  appear  the  better  choice.  Here  we  are,  with 
legs  stretched  for  comfort  toward  the  fire — easy  and 
unbuttoned.  Let  the  rain  beat  on  the  glass!  Let 
chimneys  topple!  Let  the  wind  whistle  to  its  shrill 
companions  of  the  North!  But  although  I  am  led 
growling  and  reluctant  to  my  host's  door — with 
stiffened  paws,  as  it  were,  against  the  sill — I  usually 
enjoy  myself  when  I  am  once  inside.  To  see  me 
across  the  salad  smiling  at  my  pretty  neighbor,  no 
one  would  know  how  churlish  I  had  been  on  the 
coming  of  the  invitation. 

I  have  attended  my  share  of  formal  dinners.     I 

have  dined  with  the  magnificent  H s  and  their 

Roman  Senator  has  announced  me  at  the  door;  al 
though,  when  he  asked  my  name  in  the  hall,  I  thought 
at  first  in  my  ignorance  that  he  gave  me  directions 
about  my  rubbers.  No  one  has  faced  more  forks  and 
knives,  or  has  apportioned  his  implements  with  nicer 
discrimination  among  the  meats.  Not  once  have  I 
been  forced  to  stir  my  after-dinner  coffee  with  a  soup 
spoon.  And  yet  I  look  back  on  these  grand  occasions 
with  contentment  chiefly  because  they  are  past.  I 


138  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

am  in  whole  agreement  with  Cleopatra  when  she 
spoke  slightingly  of  her  salad  days — surely  a  fashion 
able  afternoon  affair  at  a  castle  on  the  river  Nile— 
when,  as  she  confessed,  she  was  young  and  green  in 
judgment. 

It  is  usually  a  pleasure  to  meet  distinguished  per 
sons  who,  as  a  rule,  are  friendly  folk  who  sit  in  peace 
and  comfort.  But  if  they  are  lugged  in  and  set  up 
stiffly  at  a  formal  dinner  they  are  too  much  an 
exhibition.  In  this  circumstance  they  cannot  be 
natural  and  at  their  best.  And  then  I  wonder  how 
they  endure  our  abject  deference  and  flabby  sur 
render  to  their  opinions.  Would  it  not  destroy  all 
interest  in  a  game  of  bowling  if  the  wretched  pins 
fell  down  before  the  hit  were  made?  It  was  lately 
at  a  dinner  that  our  hostess  held  in  captivity  three  of 
these  celebrated  lions.  One  of  them  was  a  famous 
traveler  who  had  taken  a  tiger  by  its  bristling  beard. 
The  second  was  a  popular  lecturer.  The  third  was 
in  distemper  and  crouched  quietly  at  her  plate.  The 
first  two  are  sharp  and  bright  and  they  roared  to 
expectation.  But  I  do  not  complain  when  lions  take 
possession  of  the  cage,  for  it  reduces  the  general 
liability  of  talk,  and  a  common  man,  if  he  be  indus 
trious,  may  pluck  his  bird  down  to  the  bone  in  peace. 

A  formal  reception  is  even  worse  than  a  dinner. 
One  stands  around  with  stalled  machinery.  Good 
stout  legs,  that  can  go  at  a  trot  all  day,  become  now 
weak  and  wabbly.  One  hurdles  dispiritedly  over 


ON  GOING  TO  A  PARTY  139 

trailing  skirts.  One  tries  in  conversation  to  think  of 
the  name  of  a  play  he  has  just  seen,  but  it  escapes 
him.  It  is,  however,  so  nearly  in  his  grasp,  that  it 
prevents  him  from  turning  to  another  topic.  Benson, 
the  essayist,  also  disliked  formal  receptions  and  he 
quotes  Prince  Hal  in  their  dispraise.  "Prithee,  Ned," 
says  the  Prince — and  I  fancy  that  he  has  just  led  a 
thirsty  Duchess  to  the  punchbowl,  and  was  now  in 
the  very  act  of  escaping  while  her  face  was  buried  in 
the  cup — "Prithee,  Ned,"  he  says,  "come  out  of  this 
fat  room,  and  lend  me  thy  hand  to  laugh  a  little!" 
And  we  can  imagine  these  two  enfranchised  rogues, 
easy  at  heart,  making  off  later  to  their  Eastcheap 
tavern,  and  the  passing  of  a  friendly  cup.  But  now, 
alas,  today,  all  of  the  rooms  of  the  house  are  fat  and 
thick  with  people.  There  is  a  confusion  of  tongues 
as  when  work  on  the  tower  of  Babel  was  broken  off. 
There  is  no  escape.  If  it  were  one's  good  luck  to  be 
a  waiter,  one  could  at  least  console  himself  that  it  was 
his  livelihood. 

The  furniture  has  been  removed  from  all  the  rooms 
in  order  that  more  persons  may  be  more  uncomfort 
able.  Or  perhaps  the  chairs  and  tables,  like  rats  in  a 
leaky  ship,  have  scuttled  off,  as  it  were,  now  that 
fashion  has  wrecked  the  home.  A  friend  of  mine, 

J ,  resents    these    entertainments.      No    sooner, 

recently,  did  he  come  into  such  a  bare  apartment 
where,  in  happier  days  his  favorite  chair  had  stood, 
than  he  hinted  to  the  guests  that  the  furniture  had 


HO  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

been  sold  to  meet  the  expenses  of  the  day.  This  sorry 
jest  lasted  him  until,  on  whispering  to  a  servant,  he 
learned  that  the  chairs  had  been  stored  in  an  upper 
hall.  At  this  he  proposed  that  the  party  reassemble 
above,  where  at  least  they  might  sit  down  arid  be 

comfortable.    When  I  last  saw  J that  evening  he 

was  sitting  at  the  turn  of  the  stairs  behind  an  exotic 
shrubbery,  where  he  had  found  a  vagrant  chair  that 
had  straggled  behind  the  upper  emigration. 

The  very  envelope  that  contains  a  formal  invitation 
bears  a  forbidding  look.  It  is  massive  and  costly  to 
the  eye.  It  is  much  larger  than  a  letter,  unless,  per 
haps,  one  carries  on  a  correspondence  with  a  giant 
from  Brobdingnag.  You  turn  it  round  and  round 
with  sad  premonition.  The  very  writing  is  coldly  im 
personal  without  the  pinch  of  a  more  human  hand.  It 
practices  a  chill  anonymity  as  if  it  contains  a  warrant 
for  a  hanging.  At  first  you  hope  it  may  be  merely 
an  announcement  from  your  tailor,  inasmuch  as  com 
merce  patterns  its  advertisements  on  these  social 
forms.  I  am  told  that  there  was  once  a  famous 
man — a  distinguished  novelist — who  so  disliked  for 
mal  parties  but  was  so  timid  at  their  rejection  that 
he  took  refuge  in  the  cellar  whenever  one  of  these 
forbidding  documents  arrived,  until  he  could  forge  a 
plausible  excuse ;  for  he  believed  that  these  colder  and 
more  barren  rooms  quickened  his  invention.  The 
story  goes  that  once  when  he  was  in  an  unusually 
timid  state  he  lacked  the  courage  to  break  the  seal  and 


ON  GOING  TO  A  PARTY 


so  spent  an  uneasy  morning  upon  the  tubs,  to  the 
inconvenience  of  the  laundress  who  thought  that  he 
fretted  upon  the  plot.  At  last,  on  tearing  off  the 
envelope,  he  found  to  his  relief  that  it  was  only  a 
notice  for  a  display  of  haberdashery  at  a  fashionable 
shop.  In  his  gratitude  at  his  escape  he  at  once  sought 
his  desk  and  conferred  a  blushing  heiress  on  his  hero. 

But  perhaps  there  are  persons  of  an  opposite  mind 
who  welcome  an  invitation.  Even  the  preliminary 
rummage  delights  them  when  their  clothes  are  sent 
for  pressing  and  their  choice  wavers  among  their 
plumage.  For  such  persons  the  superscription  on 
the  envelope  now  seems  written  in  the  spacious  hand 
of  hospitality. 

But  of  informal  dinners  and  the  meeting  of  friends 
we  can  all  approve  without  reserve.  I  recall,  once 
upon  a  time,  four  old  gentlemen  who  met  every  week 
for  whist.  Three  of  them  were  of  marked  eccen 
tricity.  One  of  them,  when  the  game  was  at  its  pitch, 
reached  down  to  the  rungs  of  his  chair  and  hitched  it 
first  to  one  side  and  then  to  the  other,  mussing  up  the 
rugs.  The  second  had  the  infirmity  of  nodding  his 
head  continuously.  Even  if  he  played  a  trivial  three 
spot,  he  sat  on  the  decision  and  wagged  his  beard  up 
and  down  like  a  judge.  The  third  sucked  his  teeth 
and  thereby  made  hissing  noises.  Later  in  the  even 
ing  there  would  be  served  buttermilk  or  cider,  and 
the  sober  party  would  adjourn  at  the  gate.  But 
there  were  two  young  rascals  who  practiced  these 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


eccentricities  and  after  they  had  gone  to  bed,  for  the 
exquisite  humor  of  it,  they  nodded  their  heads,  too, 
and  sucked  their  teeth  with  loud  hissing  noises. 

No  one  entertains  more  pleasantly  than  the  S  - 
family  and  no  one  is  more  informal.  If  you  come  on 
the  minute  for  your  dinner,  it  is  likely  that  none  of 
the  family  is  about.  After  a  search  J  -  is  found 
in  a  flannel  shirt  in  his  garden  with  a  watering-can. 
"Hello!"  he  says  in  surprise.  "What  time  is  it? 
Have  you  come  already  for  dinner?" 

"For  God's  sake,"  you  reply  —  for  I  assume  you 
to  be  of  familiar  and  profane  manners  —  "get  up  and 
wash  yourself!  Don't  you  know  that  you  are  giving 
a  party?" 

J-  -  affects  to  be  indignant.  "Who  is  giving  this 
party,  anyway?"  he  asks.  "If  it's  yours,  you  run  it!" 
And  then  he  leads  you  to  the  house,  where  you  abuse 
each  other  agreeably  as  he  dresses. 

Once  a  year  on  Christmas  Eve  they  give  a  general 
party.  This  has  been  a  custom  for  a  number  of  years 
and  it  is  now  an  institution  as  fixed  as  the  night  itself. 
Invitations  are  not  issued.  At  most  a  rumor  goes 
abroad  to  the  elect  that  nine  o'clock  is  a  proper  time 
to  come,  when  the  children,  who  have  peeked  for 
Santa  Glaus  up  the  chimney,  have  at  last  been  put  to 
bed.  There  is  a  great  wood  fire  in  the  sitting-room 
and,  by  way  of  andirons,  two  soldiers  of  the  Continen 
tal  Army  keep  up  their  endless  march  across  the 
hearth.  The  fireplace  is  encircled  by  a  line  of  leather 


ON  GOING  TO  A  PARTY  11>3 

cushions  that  rest  upon  the  floor,  like  a  window-seat 
that  has  undergone  amputation  of  all  its  legs. 

But  the  center  of  the  entertainment  is  a  prodigious 
egg-nog  that  rises  from  the  dining  table.  I  do  not 
know  the  composition  of  the  drink,  yet  my  nose  is 
much  at  fault  if  it  includes  aught  but  eggs  and 
whiskey.  At  the  end  of  the  table  J—  -  stands  with 
his  mighty  ladle.  It  is  his  jest  each  year — for  always 
there  is  a  fresh  stranger  who  has  not  heard  it — it  is 
his  jest  that  the  drink  would  be  fair  and  agreeable 
to  the  taste  if  it  were  not  for  the  superfluity  of  eggs 
which  dull  the  mixture. 

No  one,  even  of  a  sour  prohibition,  refuses  his 
entreaty.  My  aunt,  who  speaks  against  the  Demon, 
once  appeared  at  the  party.  She  came  sniffing  to  the 
table.  "Ought  I  to  take  it,  John?"  she  asked. 

"Mildest  thing  you  ever  drank,"  said  John,  and 
he  ladled  her  out  a  cup. 

My  aunt  smelled  it  suspiciously. 

"It's  eggs,"  said  John. 

"Eggs?"  said  my  aunt,  "What  a  funny  smell  they 
have !"  She  said  this  with  a  facial  expression  not  un 
like  that  of  Little  Red  Ridinghood,  when  she  first  saw 
the  old  lady  with  the  long  nose  and  sharp  eyes. 

"Nothing  bad,  I  hope,"  said  John. 

"N-no,"  said  my  aunt  slowly,  and  she  took  a  sip. 

"Of  course  the  eggs  spoil  it  a  little,"  said  John. 

"It's  very  good,"  said  my  aunt,  as  she  took  another 
sip. 


144  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

Then  she  put  down  her  glass,  but  only  when  it  was 
empty.  "John,"  she  said,  "y°u  are  a  rogue.  You 
would  like  to  get  me  tipsy."  And  at  this  she  moved 
out  of  danger.  Little  Red  Ridinghood  escaped  the 
wolf  as  narrowly.  But  did  Little  Red  Ridinghood 
escape  ?  Dear  me,  how  one  forgets ! 

But  in  closing  I  must  not  fail  to  mention  an  old 
lady  and  gentleman,  both  beyond  eighty,  who  have 
always  attended  these  parties.  They  have  met  old 
age  with  such  trust  and  cheerfulness,  and  they  are  so 
eager  at  a  jest,  that  no  one  of  all  the  gathering  fits 
the  occasion  half  so  well.  And  to  exchange  a  word 
with  them  is  to  feel  a  pleasant  contact  with  all  the 
gentleness  and  mirth  that  have  lodged  with  them 
during  the  space  of  their  eighty  years.  The  old 
gentleman  is  an  astronomer  and  until  lately,  when  he 
moved  to  a  newer  quarter  of  the  town,  he  had  behind 
his  house  in  a  proper  tower  a  telescope,  through  which 
he  showed  his  friends  the  moon.  But  in  these  last 
few  years  his  work  has  been  entirely  mathematical 
and  his  telescope  has  fallen  into  disorder.  His  work 
finds  a  quicker  comment  among  scientists  of  foreign 
lands  than  on  his  own  street. 

It  is  likely  that  tonight  he  has  been  busy  with  the 
computation  of  the  orbit  of  a  distant  star  up  to  the 
very  minute  when  his  wife  brought  in  his  tie  and 
collar.  And  then  arm  and  arm  they  have  set  out  for 
the  party,  where  they  will  sit  until  the  last  guest  has 
gone. 


ON  GOING  TO  A  PARTY  U5 

Alas,  when  the  party  comes  this  Christmas,  only 
one  of  these  old  people  will  be  present,  for  the  other 
with  a  smile  lately  fell  asleep. 


On  a  Pair  of  Leather  Suspenders. 

NOT  long  since  I  paid  a  visit  to  New  Haven 
before  daylight  of  a  winter  morning.    I  had 
hoped   that   my   sleeper    from   Washington 
might  be  late  and  I  was  encouraged  in  this  by  the 
trainman  who  said  that  the  dear  old  thing  commonly 
went  through  New  Haven  at  breakfast  time.     But 
it  was  barely  three  o'clock  when  the  porter  plucked 
at  me  in  my  upper  berth.    He  intruded,  happily,  on 
a  dream  in  which  the  train  came  rocking  across  the 
comforter. 

Three  o'clock,  if  you  approach  it  properly  through 
the  evening,  is  said  to  have  its  compensations.  There 
are  persons  (with  a  hiccough)  who  pronounce  it  the 
shank  of  the  evening,  but  as  an  hour  of  morning  it 
has  few  apologists.  "It  is  the  early  bird  that  catches 
the  worm;  but  this  should  merely  set  one  thinking 


ON  A  PAIR  OF  LEATHER  SUSPENDERS    147 

before  he  thrusts  out  a  foot  into  the  cold  morning, 
whether  he  may  justly  consider  himself  a  bird  or  a 
worm.  If  no  glad  twitter  rises  to  his  lips  in  these 
early  hours,  he  had  best  stay  unpecked  inside  his 
coverlet. 

It  is  hard  to  realize  that  other  two-legged  creatures 
like  myself  are  habitually  awake  at  this  hour.  In  a 
wakeful  night  I  may  have  heard  the  whistles  and  the 
clank  of  far-off  wheels,  and  I  may  have  known  dimly 
that  work  goes  on;  yet  for  the  most  part  I  have 
fancied  that  the  world,  like  a  river  steamboat  in  a 
fog,  is  tied  at  night  to  its  shore:  or  if  it  must  go 
plunging  on  through  space  to  keep  a  schedule,  that 
here  and  there  a  light-merely  is  set  upon  a  tower-to 
warn  the  planets. 

A  locomotive  was  straining  at  its  buttons,  and  from 
the  cab  a  smoky  engineer  looked  down  on  me.  A 
truck  load  of  boxes  rattled  down  the  platform. 
Crates  of  affable  familiar  hens  were  off  upon  a 
journey,  bragging  of  their  families.  Men  with  flar 
ing  tapers  tapped  at  wheels.  -  The  waiting-room,  too, 
kept,  as  it  were,  one  eye  open  to  the  night.  The 
coffee-urn  steamed  on  the  lunch  counter,  and  sand 
wiches  sat  inside  their  glass  domes  and  looked  darkly 
on  the  world. 

It  was  the  hour  when  "the  tired  burglar  seeks  his 
bed."  -I  had  thought  of  dozing  in  a  hotel  chair  until 
breakfast,  but  presently  a  flood  appeared  in  the 


148  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

persons  of  three  scrub  women.    The  fountains  of  the 
great  deep  were  opened  and  the  waters  prevailed. 

It  still  lacked  an  hour  or  so  of  daylight.  I  remem 
bered  that  there  used  to  be  a  humble  restaurant  and 
kitchen  on  wheels — to  the  vulgar,  a  dog-wagon — up 
toward  York  Street.  This  wagon,  once  upon  a  time, 
had  appeased  our  appetites  when  we  had  been  late 
for  chapel  and  Commons.  As  an  institution  it  was 
so  trite  that  once  we  made  of  it  a  fraternity  play.  I 
faintly  remember  a  pledge  to  secrecy — sworn  by  the 
moon  and  the  seven  wandering  stars — but  neverthe 
less  I  shall  divulge  the  plot.  It  was  a  burlesque 
tragedy  in  rhyme.  Some  eighteen  years  ago,  it  seems, 
Brabantio,  the  noble  Venetian  Senator,  kept  this 
same  dog-wagon — he  and  his  beautiful  daughter 
Desdemona.  Here  came  Othello,  lago  and  Cassio  of 
the  famous  class  of  umpty-ump. 

The  scene  of  the  drama  opens  with  Brabantio 
flopping  his  dainties  on  the  iron,  chanting  to  himself 
a  lyric  in  praise  of  their  tender  juices.  Presently 
Othello  enters  and  when  Brabantio's  back  is  turned 
he  makes  love  to  Desdemona— a  handsome  fellow, 
this  Othello,  with  the  manner  of  a  hero  and  curled 
moustachios.  Exit  Othello  to  a  nine  o'clock,  Ladd 
on  Confusions.  Now  the  rascal  lago  enters — myself! 
with  flowing  tie.  He  hates  Othello.  He  glowers 
like  a  villain  and  soliloquizes : 

In  order  that  my  vengeance  I  may  plot 
Give  me  a  dog,  and  give  it  to  me  hot ! 


ON  A  PAIR  OF  LEATHER  SUSPENDERS    149 

That  was  the  kind  of  play.  Finally,  Desdemona  is 
nearly  smothered  but  is  returned  at  last  to  Othello's 
arms.  lago  meets  his  deserts.  He  is  condemned  to 
join  A  K  E,  a  rival  fraternity.  But  the  warm 
heart  of  Desdemona  melts  and  she  intercedes  to  save 
him  from  this  horrid  end.  In  mercy — behind  the 
scenes — his  head  is  chopped  off.  Then  all  of  us, 
heroines  and  villains,  sat  to  a  late  hour  around  the 
fire  and  told  one  another  how  the  real  stage  thirsted 
for  us.  We  drank  lemonade  mostly  but  we  sang  of 
beer — one  song  about 

Beer,  beer,  glorious  beer! 
Fill  yourself  right  up  to  here! 

accompanied  with  a  gesture  several  inches  above  the 
head.  As  the  verses  progressed  it  was  customary  to 
stand  on  chairs  and  to  reach  up  on  tiptoe  to  show  the 
increasing  depth. 

But  the  dog- wagon  has  now  become  a  gilded  un 
familiar  thing,  twice  its  former  size  and  with  stools 
for  a  considerable  company.  I  questioned  the  pro 
prietor  whether  he  might  be  descended  from  the  noble 
Brabantio,  but  the  dull  fellow  gave  no  response.  The 
wagon  has  passed  to  meaner  ownership. 

Across  the  street  Vanderbilt  Hall  loomed  indis 
tinctly.  To  the  ignorant  it  may  be  necessary  to 
explain  that  its  courtyard  is  open  to  Chapel  Street, 
but  that  an  iron  grill  stretches  from  wing  to  wing  and 
keeps  out  the  town.  (This  grill  is  high  enough  for 


150  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

Hagenbeck,  and; it  used  to  be  a  favorite  game  with 
us  to  play  animal  behind  it  for  the  street's  amuse 
ment.  At  the  hour  when  the  crowd  issued  from  the 
matinee  at  the  Hyperion  Theatre,  our  wittiest  stu 
dents  paced  on  all  fours  up  and  down  behind  this 
grill  and  roared  for  raw  beef.  E—  -  was  the  wag  of 
the  building  and  he  could  climb  up  to  a  high  place  and 
scratch  himself  like  a  monkey — an  entertainment  of 
more  humor  than  elegance.  ^Elated  with  success,  he 
and  a  companion  later  chartered  a  street-organ — a 
doleful  one-legged  affair — and  as  man  and  monkey 
they  gathered  pennies  out  Orange  Street.; 

I  turned  into  the  dark  Campus  by  Osborn  Hall. 
It  is  as  ugly  a  building  as  one  could  meet  on  a  week's 
journey,  and  yet  by  an  infelicity  all  class  pictures 
are  taken  on  its  steps.  Freshman  courses  are  given 
in  the  basement — a  French  class  once  in  particular. 
Sometimes,  when  we  were  sunk  dismally  in  the  ir 
regular  verbs,  bootblacks  and  old-clothes  men  stopped 
on  the  street  and  grinned  down  on  us.  And  all  the 
dreary  hour,  as  we  sweated  with  translation,  above 
us  on  the  pavement  the  feet  and  happy  legs  of  the 
enfranchised  went  by  the  window. 

Yale  is  a  bad  jumble  of  architecture.  It  is  amazing 
how  such  incongruous  buildings  can  lodge  together. 
(Did  not  the  Old  Brick  Row  cry  out  when  Durfee  was 
built?  Surely  the  Gothic  library  uttered  a  protest 
against  its  newer  adjunct.  And  are  the  Bicentennial 
buildings  so  beautiful?  At  best  we  have  exchanged 


ON  A  PAIR  OF  LEATHER  SUSPENDERS    151 

the  fraudulent  wooden  ramparts  of  Alumni  Hall  for 
the  equally  fraudulent  inside  columns  of  these  newer 
buildings.  It  is  a  mercy  that  there  is  no  style  and 
changing  fashion  in  elm  trees.  As  Viola  might  have 
remarked  about  the  Campus:  it  were  excellently 
done,  if  God  did  all. 

Presently  in  the  dark  I  came  on  the  excavations 
for  the  Harkness  quadrangle.  So  at  last  Commons 
was  gone.  In  that  old  building  we  ate  during  our 
impoverished  weeks.  I  do  not  know  that  we  saved 
much,  for  we  were  driven  to  extras,  but  the  reckoning 
was  deferred.  There  was  a  certain  tutti-frutti  ice 
cream,  rich  in  ginger,  that  has  now  vanished  from  the 
earth.  Or  chocolate  eclairs  made  the  night  stand  out. 
I  recall  that  one  could  seldom  procure  a  second  help 
ing  of  griddlecakes  except  on  those  mornings  when 
there  were  ants  in  the  syrup.  Also,  I  recall  that 
sometimes  there  was  a  great  crash  of  trays  at  the 
pantry  doors,  and  almost  at  the  instant  two  old 
Goodies,  harnessed  ready  with  mops  and  pails,  ran 
out  and  sponged  up  the  wreckage. 

And  Pierson  Hall  is  gone,  that  was  once  the  center 
of  Freshman  life.  Does  anybody  remember  The 
Voice?  It  was  a  weekly  paper  issued  in  the  interest 
of  prohibition.  I  doubt  if  we  would  have  quarreled 
with  it  for  this,  but  it  denounced  Yale  and  held  up 
in  contrast  the  purity  of  Oberlin.  Oberlin!  And 
therefore  we  hated  it,  and  once  a  week  we  burned  its 
issue  in  the  stone  and  plaster  corridors  of  Pierson. 


152  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

There  was  once  a  residence  at  the  corner  of  York 
and  Library  where  Freshmen  resided.  The  railing 
of  the  stairs  wabbled.  The  bookcase  door  lacked  a 
hinge.  Three  out  of  four  chairs  were  rickety.  The 
bath-tub,  which  had  been  the  chemical  laboratory  for 
some  former  student,  was  stained  an  unhealthy  color. 
If  ever  it  shall  appear  that  Harlequin  lodged  upon 
the  street,  here  was  the  very  tub  where  he  washed  his 
clothes.  Without  caution  the  window  of  the  bed 
room  fell  out  into  the  back  yard.  But  to  atone  for 
these  defects,  up  through  the  scuttle  in  the  hall  there 
was  an  airy  perch  upon  the  roof.  Here  Freshmen 
might  smoke  their  pipes  in  safety — a  privilege  denied 
them  on  the  street — and  debate  upon  their  affairs. 
Who  were  hold-off  men!  Who  would  make  BovXifl 
Or  they  invented  outrageous  names  for  the  faculty, 
My  dear  Professor  Blank,  could  you  hear  yourself 
described  by  these  young  cubs  through  their  tobacco 
smoke,  your  learned  ears,  so  alert  for  dactyl  and 
spondee,  would  grow  red. 

Do  Scott's  boys,  I  wonder,  still  gather  clothes  for 
pressing  around  the  Campus?  Do  they  still  sell 
tickets — sixteen  punches  for  a  dollar — five  punches 
to  the  suit?  On  Monday  mornings  do  colored 
laundresses  push  worn  baby-carts  around  to  gather 
what  we  were  pleased  to  call  the  "dirty  filth"?  And 
do  these  same  laundresses  push  back  these  selfsame 
carts  later  in  the  week  with  "clean  filth"  aboard?  Are 
stockings  mended  in  the  same  old  way,  so  that  the 


ON  A  PAIR  OF  LEATHER  SUSPENDERS    153 

toes  look  through  the  open  mesh?  Have  college 
sweeps  learned  yet  to  tuck  in  the  sheets  at  the  foot? 
Do  old-clothes  men — Fish-eye?  Do  you  remember 
him? — do  old-clothes  men  still  whine  at  the  corner, 
and  look  you  up  and  down  in  cheap  appraisal?  Pop 
Smith  is  dead,  who  sold  his  photograph  to  Freshmen, 
but  has  he  no  successor?/  How  about  the  old  fellow 
who  sold  hot  chestnuts  at  football  games — "a  nickel 
a  bush" — a  rare  contraction  meant  to  denote  a 
bushel — in  reality  fifteen  nuts  and  fifteen  worms. 
Does  George  Felsburg  still  play  the  overture  at 
Poli's,  reading  his  newspaper  the  while,  and  do  comic 
actors  still  jest  with  him  across  the  footlights? 

Is  it  still  ethical  to  kick  Freshmen  on  the  night  of 
Omega  Lambda  Chi?  Is  "nigger  baby"  played  on 
the  Campus  any  more?  The  loser  of  this  precious 
game,  in  the  golden  days,  leaned  forward  against  the 
wall  with  his  coat-tails  raised,  while  everybody  took 
a  try  at  him  with  a  tennis  ball.  And,  of  course,  no  one 
now  plays  "piel."  A  youngster  will  hardly  have 
heard  of  the  game.  It  was  once  so  popular  that  all 
the  stone  steps  about  the  college  showed  its  marks. 
And  next  year  we  heard  that  the  game  had  spread  to 
Harvard. 

Do  students  still  make  for  themselves  oriental 
corners  with  Bagdad  stripes  and  Turkish  lamps? 
Do  the  fair  fingers  of  Farmington  and  Northampton 
still  weave  the  words  "  'Neath  the  Elms"  upon  sofa 
pillows?  Do  Seniors  still  bow  the  President  down  the 


154  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

aisle  of  Chapel?  Do  students  still  get  out  their  Greek 
with  "trots"?  It  was  the  custom  for  three  or  four 
lazy  students  to  gather  together  and  summon  up  a 
newsy  to  read  the  trot,  while  they,  lolling  with  pipes 
on  their  Morris  chairs,  fumbled  with  the  text  and  in 
terlined  it  against  a  loss  of  memory.  Let  the  fair- 
haired  goddess  Juno  speak!  Ulysses,  as  he  pleases, 
may  walk  on  the  shore  of  the  loud-sounding  sea. 
Thereafter  in  class  one  may  repose  safely  on  his  inter 
lineation  and  snap  at  flies  with  a  rubber  band.  This 
method  of  getting  a  lesson  was  all  very  well  except 
that  the  newsy  halted  at  the  proper  name.  A  device 
was  therefore  hit  on  of  calling  all  the  gods  and  heroes 
by  the  name  of  Smith.  Homeric  combat  then  ran 
like  this :  the  heart  of  Smit  was  black  with  anger  and 
he  smote  Smit  upon  the  brazen  helmet.  And  the 
world  grew  dark  before  his  eyes,  and  he  fell  forward 
like  a  tower  and  bit  the  dust  and  his  armor  clanked 
about  him.  But  at  evening,,  from  a  far-off  mountain 
top  the  white-armed  goddess  Smit-Smit  (Pallas- 
Athena)  saw  him,  and  she  felt  compash — compassion 
for  him. 

And  I  suppose  that  students  still  sing  upon  the 
fence.  There  was  a  Freshman  once,  in  those  early 
nights  of  autumn  when  they  were  still  a  prey  to 
Sophomores,  who  came  down  Library  Street  after 
his  supper  at  Commons.  He  wondered  whether  the 
nights  of  hazing  were  done  and  was  unresolved 
whether  he  ought  to  return  to  his  room  and  sit  close. 


ON  A  PAIR  OF  LEATHER  SUSPENDERS    155 

Presently  he  heard  the  sound  of  singing.  It  came 
from  the  Campus,  from  the  fence.  He  was  greener 
than  most  Freshmen  and  he  had  never  heard  men 
sing  in  four-part  harmony.  With  him  music  had 
always  been  a  single  tune,  or  at  most  a  lost  tenor 
fumbled  uncertainly  for  the  pitch.  Any  grunt  had 
been  a  bass.  And  so  the  sound  ravished  him.  In  the 
open  air  and  in  the  dark  the  harmony  was  unpar 
alleled.  He  stole  forward,  still  with  one  eye  open  for 
Sophomores,  and  crouched  in  the  shadowy  angle  of 
North  Middle.  Now  the  song  was  in  full  chorus  and 
the  branches  of  the  elms  swayed  to  it,  and  again  a 
bass  voice  sang  alone  and  the  others  hummed  a  low 
accompaniment. 

Occasionally,  across  the  Campus,  someone  in  pass 
ing  called  up  to  a  window,  "Oh,  Weary  Walker,  stick 
out  your  head!"  And  then,  after  a  pause,  satirically, 
when  the  head  was  out,  "Stick  it  in  again!"  On  the 
stones  there  were  the  sounds  of  feet — feet  with  lazy 
purpose — loud  feet  down  wooden  steps,  bound  for 
pleasure.  At  the  windows  there  were  lights,  where 
dull  thumbs  moved  down  across  a  page.  Let  A  equal 
B  to  find  our  Z.  And  let  it  be  quick  about  it,  before 
the  student  nod!  And  to  the  Freshman,  crouching 
in  the  shadow,  it  seemed  at  last  that  he  was  a  part  of 
this  life,  with  its  music,  its  voices,  its  silent  elms,  the 
dim  buildings  with  their  lights,  the  laughter  and  the 
glad  feet  sounding  in  the  dark. 


156  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

I  came  now,  rambling  on  this  black  wintry  morn 
ing,  before  the  sinister  walls  of  Skull  and  Bones. 

I  sat  on  a  fence  and  contemplated  the  building. 
It  is  as  dingy  as  ever  and,  doubtless,  to  an  under 
graduate,  as  fearful  as  ever.  What  rites  and  cere 
monies  are  held  within  these  dim  walls!  What  awful 
celebrations!  The  very  stones  are  grim.  The  chain 
outside  that  swings  from  post  to  post  is  not  as  other 
chains,  but  was  forged  at  midnight.  The  great  door 
has  a  black  spell  upon  it.  It  was  on  such  a  door,  iron- 
bound  and  pitiless,  that  the  tragic  Ygraine  beat  in 
vain  for  mercy. 

It  is  a  breach  of  etiquette  for  an  undergraduate 
in  passing  even  to  turn  and  look  at  Bones.  Its  name 
may  not  be  mentioned  to  a  member  of  the  society, 
and  one  must  look  furtively  around  before  pronounc 
ing  it.  Now  as  I  write  the  word,  I  feel  a  last  vibration 
of  the  fearful  tremor. 

Seniors  compose  its  membership — fifteen  or  so,  and 
membership  is  ranked  as  the  highest  honor  of  the 
college.  But  in  God's  name,  what  is  all  this  pother? 
Are  there  not  already  enough  jealousies  without  this 
one  added?  Does  not  college  society  already  fall 
into  enough  locked  coteries  without  this  one?  No 
matter  how  keen  is  the  pride  of  membership,  it  does 
not  atone  for  the  disappointments  and  the  heart 
burnings  of  failure.  It  is  hinted  obscurely  for  expia 
tion  that  it  and  its  fellow  societies  do  somehow  confer 
a  benefit  on  the  college  by  holding  out  a  reward  for 


ON  A  PAIR  OF  LEATHER  SUSPENDERS    157 

hard  endeavor.  This  is  the  highest  goal.  I  distrust 
the  wisdom  of  the  judges.  There  is  an  honester 
repute  to  be  gained  in  the  general  estimate  of  one's 
fellows.  These  societies  cut  an  unnatural  cleavage 
across  the  college.  They  are  the  source  of  dishonest 
envy  and  of  mean  lick-spittling.  For  three  years, 
until  the  election  is  announced,  there  is  much  playing 
for  position.  A  favored  fellow,  whose  election  is 
certain,  is  courted  by  others  who  stand  on  a  slippery 
edge,  because  it  is  known  that  in  Senior  elections  one 
is  rated  by  his  association.  And  is  it  not  prepos 
terous  that  fifteen  youngsters  should  set  themselves 
above  the  crowd,  wear  obscure  jewelry  and  wrap 
themselves  in  an  empty  and  pretentious  mystery? 

But  what  has  this  rambling  paper  to  do  with  a  pair 
of  leather  suspenders?  Nothing.  Nothing  much. 
Only,  after  a  while,  just  before  the  dawn,  I  came  in 
front  of  the  windows  of  a  cheap  haberdasher.  And 
I  recalled  how  I  had  once  bought  at  this  very  shop 
a  pair  of  leather  suspenders.  They  were  the  only 
ones  left — it  was  hinted  that  Seniors  bought  them 
largely — and  they  were  a  bargain.  The  proprietor 
blew  off  the  dust  and  slapped  them  and  dwelt  upon 
their  merits.  They  would  last  me  into  middle  age 
and  were  cheap.  There  was,  I  recall,  a  kind  of  tricky 
differential  between  the  shoulders  to  take  up  the  slack 
on  either  side.  Being  a  Freshman  I  was  prevailed 
upon,  and  I  bought  them  and  walked  to  Morris  Cove 
while  they  creaked  and  fretted.  And  here  was  the 


158  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

very  shop,  arising  in  front  of  me  as  from  times  before 
the  flood.  With  it  there  arose,  too,  a  recollection  of 
my  greenness  and  timidity.  And  mingled  with  all 
the  hours  of  happiness  of  those  times  there  were 
hours,  also,  of  emptiness  and  loneliness — hours  when, 
newcome  to  my  surroundings,  for  fear  of  rebuff  I 
walked  alone. 

The  night  still  lingers.  These  dark  lines  of  wall 
and  tree  and  tower  are  etched  by  Time -with  memories 
to  burn  the  pattern.  The  darkness  stirs  strangely, 
like  waters  in  the  solemn  bowl  when  a  witch  reads  off 
the  future.  But  the  past  is  in  this  darkness,  and  the 
December  wind  this  night  has  roused  up  the  summer 
winds  of  long  ago.  In  that  cleft  is  the  old  window. 
Here  are  the  stairs,  wood  and  echoing  with  an  almost 
forgotten  tread.  A  word,  a  phrase,  a  face,  shows  for 
an  instant  in  the  shadows.  Here,  too,  in  memory,  is 
a  pageantry  of  old  custom  with  its  songs  and  uproar, 
victory  with  its  fires  and  dance. 

Forms,  too,  I  see  bent  upon  their  books,  eager  or 
dull,  with  intent  or  sleepy  finger  on  the  page.  And 
I  hear  friendly  cries  and  the  sound  of  many  feet 
across  the  night. 

Dawn  at  last — a  faint  light  through  the  elms. 
From  the  Chapel  tower  the  bells  sound  the  hour  and 
strike  their  familiar  melody.  Dawn.  And  now  the 
East  in  triumphal  garment  scatters  my  memories, 
born  of  night,  before  its  flying  wheel. 


Boots  for  Runaways. 

NOT  long  ago,  having  come  through  upon  the 
uppers  of  my  shoes,  I  wrapped  the  pair  in  a 
bit  of  newspaper  and  went  around  the  corner 
into  Sixth  Avenue  to  find  a  cobbler.  This  is  not 
difficult,  for  there  are  at  least  three  cobblers  to  the 
block,  all  of  them  in  basements  four  or  five  steps  below 
the  sidewalk.  Cobblers  and  little  tailors  who  press 
and  repair  clothing,  small  grocers  and  delicatessen 
venders — these  are  the  chief  commerce  of  the  street. 
I  passed  my  tailor's  shop,  which  is  next  to  the  corner. 
He  is  a  Russian  Jew  who  came  to  this  country  before 
the  great  war.  Every  Thursday,  when  he  takes  away 
my  off  suit,  I  ask  him  about  the  progress  of  the  Revo 
lution.  At  first  I  found  him  hopeful,  yet  in  these 
last  few  months  his  opinions  are  a  little  broken.  His 


160  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

shop  consists  of  a  single  room,  with  a  stove  to  heat 
his  irons  and  a  rack  for  clothes,  It  is  so  open  to  the 
street  that  once  when  it  was  necessary  for  me  to 
change  trousers  he  stood  between  me  and  the  window 
with  one  foot  against  the  door  by  way  of  moratorium 
on  his  business.  His  taste  in  buttons  is  loud.  Those 
on  my  dinner  coat  are  his  choice — great  round  jewels 
that  glisten  in  the  dark. 

Next  to  my  tailor,  except  for  a  Chinese  laundry 
with  a  damp  celestial  smell,  is  a  delicatessen  shop  with 
a  pleasant  sound  of  French  across  the  counter.  Here 
are  sausages,  cut  across  the  middle  in  order  that  no 
one  may  buy  the  pig,  as  it  were,  in  its  poke.  Potato 
salad  is  set  out  each  afternoon  in  a  great  bowl  with 
a  wooden  spoon  sticking  from  its  top.  Then  there  is 
a  baked  bean,  all  brown  upon  the  crust,  which  is 
housed  with  its  fellows  in  a  cracked  baking  dish  and 
is  not  to  be  despised.  There  is  also  a  tray  of  pastry 
with  whipped  cream  oozing  agreeably  from  the  joints, 
and  a  pickle  vat  as  corrective  to  these  sweets.  But 
behind  the  shop  is  the  bakery  and  I  can  watch  a  whole 
some  fellow,  with  his  sleeves  tucked  up,  rolling  pasties 
thin  on  a  great  white  table,  folding  in  nuts  and  jellies 
and  cutting  them  deftly  for  the  oven. 

Across  the  street  there  resides  a  mender  of  musical 
instruments.  He  keeps  dusty  company  with  violins 
and  basses  that  have  come  to  broken  health.  When 
a  trombone  slips  into  disorder,  it  seeks  his  sanitarium. 
Occasionally,  as  I  pass,  I  catch  the  sound  of  a  twang- 


BOOTS  FOR  RUNAWAYS  161 

ing  string,  as  if  at  last  a  violin  were  convalescent. 
Or  I  hear  a  reedy  nasal  upper  note,  and  I  know  that 
an  oboe  has  been  mended  of  its  complaint  and  that 
in  these  dark  days  of  winter  it  yearns  for  a  woodside 
stream  and  the  return  of  spring.  It  seems  rather  a 
romantic  business  tinkering  these  broken  instruments 
into  harmony. 

Next  door  there  is  a  small  stationer — a  bald-headed 
sort  of  business,  as  someone  has  called  it.  Ruled 
paper  for  slavish  persons,  plain  sheets  for  bold 
Bolshevists. 

Then  comes  our  grocer.  There  is  no  heat  in  the 
place  except  what  comes  from  an  oil  stove  on  which 
sits  a  pan  of  steaming  water.  Behind  the  stove  with 
his  twitching  ear  close  against  it  a  cat  lies  at  all  hours 
of  the  day.  There  is  an  engaging  smudge  across  his 
nose,  as  if  he  had  been  led  off  on  high  adventure  to 
the  dusty  corners  behind  the  apple  barrel.  I  bend 
across  the  onion  crate  to  pet  him,  and  he  stretches  his 
paws  in  and  out  rhythmically  in  complete  content 
ment.  He  walks  along  the  counter  with  arched  back 
and  leans  against  our  purchases. 

Next  our  grocer  is  our  bootblack,  who  has  set  up 
a  sturdy  but  shabby  throne  to  catch  the  business  off 
the  "L."  How  majestically  one  sits  aloft  here  with 
outstretched  toe,  for  all  the  world  like  the  Pope 
offering  his  saintly  toe  for  a  sinner's  kiss.  The  robe 
pontifical,  the  triple  crown!  Or,  rather,  is  this  not 
a  secular  throne,  seized  once  in  a  people's  rising? 


162  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

Here  is  a  use  for  whatever  thrones  are  discarded  by 
this  present  war.  Where  the  crowd  is  thickest  at 
quitting  time — perhaps  where  the  subway  brawls 
below  Fourteenth  Street — there  I  would  set  the 
German  Kaiser's  seat  for  the  least  of  us  to  clamber  on. 

I  took  my  shoes  out  of  their  wrapper.  The  cobbler 
is  old  and  wrinkled  and  so  bent  that  one  might  think 
that  Nature  aimed  to  contrive  a  hoop  of  him  but  had 
botched  the  full  performance.  He  scratched  my 
name  upon  the  soles  and  tossed  them  into  the  pile. 
There  were  big  and  little  shoes,  some  with  low  square 
heels  and  others  with  high  thin  heels  as  if  their  wear 
ers  stood  tiptoe  with  curiosity.  It  is  a  quality,  they 
say,  that  marks  the  sex.  On  the  bench  were  bits  of 
leather,  hammers,  paring-knives,  awls,  utensils  of 
every  sort. 

On  arriving  home  I  found  an  old  friend  awaiting 

me.  B has  been  engaged  in  a  profitable  business 

for  fifteen  years  or  so  and  he  has  amassed  a  consider 
able  fortune.  Certainly  he  deserves  it,  for  he  has  been 
at  it  night  and  day  and  has  sacrificed  many  things  to 
it.  He  has  kept  the  straight  road  despite  all  truant 
beckoning.  But  his  too  close  application  has  cramped 
his  soul.  His  organization  and  his  profits,  his  balance 
sheets  and  output  have  seemed  to  become  the  whole 
of  him. 

But  for  once  I  found  that  B was  in  no  hurry 

and  we  talked  more  intimately  than  in  several  years. 
I  discovered  soon  that  his  hard  busyness  was  no  more 


BOOTS  FOR  RUNAWAYS  163 

than  a  veneer  and  that  his  freer  self  still  lived,  but 
in  confinement.  At  least  he  felt  the  great  lack  in  his 
life,  which  had  been  given  too  much  to  the  piling  up 
of  things,  to  the  sustaining  of  position — getting  and 
spending.  Yet  he  could  see  no  end.  He  was  caught 
in  the  rich  man's  treadmill,  only  less  horrible  than 
that  of  the  poor  man  with  its  cold  and  hunger. 

Afterwards,  when  he  had  gone,  I  fell  into  a  survey 
of  certain  other  men  of  my  acquaintance.  Some  few 
of  them  are  rich  also,  and  they  heap  up  for  themselves 
a  pile  of  material  things  until  they  stifle  in  the  midst. 
They  run  swiftly  and  bitterly  from  one  appointment 
to  another  in  order  that  they  may  add  a  motor  to 
their  stable.  If  they  lie  awake  at  night,  they  plan 
a  new  confusion  for  the  morrow.  They  are  getting 
and  spending  always.  They  have  been  told  many 
times  that  some  day  they  will  die  and  leave  their 
wealth,  yet  they  labor  ceaselessly  to  increase  their 
pile.  It  is  as  if  one  should  sweat  and  groan  to  load 
a  cart,  knowing  that  soon  it  goes  off  on  another  road. 
And  yet  not  one  of  these  persons  will  conceive  that 
I  mean  him.  He  will  say  that  necessity  keeps  him  at 
it.  Or  he  will  cite  his  avocations  to  prove  he  is  not 
included.  But  he  plays  golf  fretfully  with  his  eye 
always  on  the  score.  He  drives  his  motor  furiously 
to  hold  a  schedule.  Yet  in  his  youth  many  of  these 
prosperous  fellows  learned  to  play  upon  a  fiddle,  and 
they  dreamed  on  college  window-seats.  They  had 


164  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

time  for  friendliness  before  they  became  so  busy  hold 
ing  this  great  world  by  its  squirming  tail. 

Or  perhaps  they  are  not  so  very  wealthy.  If  so, 
they  work  the  harder.  To  support  their  wives  and 
children?  By  no  means.  To  support  the  pretense 
that  they  are  really  wealthy,  to  support  a  neighbor's 
competition.  It  is  this  competition  of  house  and 
goods  that  keeps  their  noses  on  the  stone.  Expendi 
ture  always  runs  close  upon  their  income,  and  their 
days  are  a  race  to  keep  ahead. 

I  was  thinking  rather  mournfully  of  the  hard  and 
unnecessary  condition  of  these  persons,  when  I  fell 
asleep.  And  by  chance,  these  unlucky  persons,  my 
boots  and  my  cobbler,  even  the  oboe  mender,  all  of 
them  somehow  got  mixed  in  my  dream. 

It  seems  that  there  was  a  cobbler  once,  long  ago, 
who  kept  a  shop  quite  out  of  the  common  run  and 
marvelous  in  its  way.  It  stood  in  a  shadowy  city  over 
whose  dark  streets  the  buildings  toppled,  until  spiders 
spun  their  webs  across  from  roof  to  roof.  And  to 
this  cobbler  the  god  Mercury  himself  journeyed  to 
have  wings  sewed  to  his  flying  shoes.  High  patron 
age.  And  Atalanta,  too,  came  and  held  out  her  swift 
foot  for  the  fitting  of  a  running  sandal.  But  perhaps 
the  cobbler's  most  famous  customer  was  a  well-known 
giant  who  ordered  of  him  his  seven-league  boots. 
These  boots,  as  you  may  well  imagine,  were  of  pro 
digious  size,  and  the  giant  himself  was  so  big  that 
when  he  left  his  order  he  sat  outside  on  the  pavement 


nflSlS 


166  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

and  thrust  his  stockinged  foot  in  through  the  window 
for  the  cobbler  to  get  his  measure. 

I  was  laughing  heartily  at  this  when  I  observed 
that  a  strange  procession  was  passing  by  the  cobbler's 
door.  First  there  was  a  man  who  was  burdened  with 
a  great  tinsel  box  hung  with  velvet,  in  which  were  six 
plush  chairs.  After  him  came  another  who  was 
smothered  with  rugs  and  pictures.  A  third  carried 
upon  his  back  his  wife,  a  great  fat  creature,  who 
glittered  with  jewels.  Behind  him  he  dragged  a 
dozen  trunks,  from  which  dangled  brocades  and 
laces.  This  was  all  so  absurd  that  in  my  mirth  I 
missed  what  followed,  but  it  seemed  to  be  a  long  line 
of  weary  persons,  each  of  whom  staggered  under  the 
burden  of  an  unworthy  vanity. 

As  I  laughed  the  night  came  on — a  dull  hot  night 
of  summer.  And  in  the  shop  I  saw  the  cobbler  on  his 
bench,  an  old  and  wrinkled  man  like  a  dwarf  in  a 
fairy  tale.  There  was  a  sign  now  above  his  door. 
"Boots  for  Runaways,"  it  read.  About  its  margin 
were  pictures  of  many  kinds  of  boots — a  shoe  of  a 
child  who  runs  to  seek  adventure,  Atalanta's  sandals, 
and  sturdy  boots  that  a  man  might  wear. 

And  now  I  saw  a  man  coming  in  the  dark  with 
tired  and  drooping  head.  In  both  hands  he  clutched 
silver  pieces  that  he  had  gathered  in  the  day.  When 
he  was  opposite  the  cobbler's  shop,  the  great  sign 
caught  his  eye.  He  wagged  his  head  as  one  who 


BOOTS  FOR  RUNAWAYS  167 

comes  upon  the  place  he  seeks.  "Have  you  boots 
for  me?"  he  asked,  with  his  head  thrust  in  the  door. 

"For  everyone  who  needs  them,"  was  the  cobbler's 
answer. 

"My  body  is  tired,"  the  man  replied,  "and  my  soul 
is  tired." 

"For  what  journey  do  you  prepare?"  the  cobbler 
asked. 

The  man  looked  ruefully  at  his  hands  which  were 
still  tightly  clenched  with  silver  pieces. 

"Getting  and  spending,"  said  the  cobbler  slowly. 

"It  has  been  my  life."  As  the  man  spoke  he  banged 
with  his  elbow  on  his  pocket  and  it  rattled  dully  with 
metal. 

"Do  you  want  boots  because  you  are  a  coward?" 
the  cobbler  asked.  "If  so,  I  have  none  to  sell." 

"A  coward?"  the  man  answered,  and  he  spoke 
deliberately  as  one  in  deep  thought.  "All  my  life 
I  have  been  a  coward,  fearing  that  I  might  not  keep 
even  with  my  neighbors.  Now,  for  the  first  time,  I 
am  brave." 

He  kicked  off  his  shoe  and  stretched  out  his  foot. 
The  cobbler  took  down  from  its  nail  his  tape  line  and 
measured  him.  And  the  twilight  deepened  and  the 
room  grew  dark. 

And  the  man  went  off  cheerily.  And  with  great 
strides  he  went  into  the  windy  North.  But  to  the 
South  in  a  slow  procession,  I  saw  those  others  who 
bore  the  weary  burden  of  their  wealth,  staggering 


168  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

beneath  their  load  of  dull  possessions — their  opera 
boxes,  their  money-chests  and  stables,  their  glittering 
houses,  their  trunks  of  silks  and  laces,  and  on  their 
backs  their  fat  wives  shining  in  the  night  with  jewels. 


On  Hanging  a  Stocking  at 
Christmas. 

AS  Christmas  is,  above  all,  a  holiday  for  chil 
dren,  it  is  proper  in  its  season  to  consider 
with  what  regard  they  hold  its  celebration. 
But  as  no  one  may  really  know  the  secrets  of  child 
hood  except  as  he  retains  the  recollection  of  his  own, 
it  is  therefore  in  the  well  of  memory  that  I  must  dip 
my  pen.     The  world  has  been  running  these  many 
years  with  gathering  speed  like  a  great  wheel  upon 
a  hill,  and  I  must  roll  it  backward  to  the  heights  to 
see  how  I  fared  on  the  night  and  day  of  Christmas. 

I  can  remember  that  for  a  month  before  the  day 
I  computed  its  distance,  not  only  in  hours  and  minutes 
but  even  in  seconds,  until  the  answer  was  scrawled 
across  my  slate.  Now,  when  I  multiply  24  x  60  x  60, 
the  resulting  86,400  has  an  agreeable  familiarity  as 
the  amount  I  struck  off  each  morning.  At  bedtime 
on  Christmas  Eve  I  had  still  36,000  impatient  sec 
onds  yet  to  wait,  for  I  considered  that  Christmas 
really  started  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

There  was,  of  course,  a  lesser  celebration  on  Christ 
mas  Eve  when  we  hung  our  stockings.  There  were 
six  of  them,  from  mother's  long  one  to  father's  short 
one.  Ours,  although  built  on  womanish  lines,  lacked 
the  greater  length  and  they  were,  consequently,  in- 


170  CHIMNEY -POT  PAPERS 

ferior  for  the  purpose  of  our  greed;  but  father's  were 
woefully  short,  as  if  fashioned  to  the  measure  of  his 
small  expectancy.  Even  a  candy  cane  came  peeping 
from  the  top,  as  if  curiosity  had  stirred  it  to  look 
around. 

Finally,  when  the  stockings  were  hung  on  the 
knobs  of  the  mantel,  we  went  up  the  dark  stairs  to 
bed.  At  the  landing  we  saw  the  last  glimmer  from 
the  friendly  sitting-room.  The  hall  clock  ticked 
solemnly  in  the  shadow  below  with  an  air  of  firmness, 
as  much  as  to  say  that  it  would  not  be  hurried.  Fret 
as  we  might,  those  36,000  seconds  were  not  to  be 
jostled  through  the  night. 

In  the  upper  hall  we  looked  from  a  window  upon 
the  snowy  world.  Perhaps  we  were  too  old  to  believe 
in  Santa  Glaus,  but  even  so,  on  this  magic  night  might 
not  a  skeptic  be  at  fault — might  there  not  be  a  chance 
that  the  discarded  world  had  returned  to  us?  Once 
a  year,  surely,  reason  might  nod  and  drowse.  Per 
haps  if  we  put  our  noses  on  the  cold  glass  and  peered 
hard  into  the  glittering  darkness,  we  might  see  the 
old  fellow  himself,  muffled  to  his  chin  in  furs,  going 
on  his  yearly  errands.  It  was  a  jingling  of  sleigh 
bells  on  the  street  that  started  this  agreeable  sus 
picion,  but,  alas,  when  the  horse  appeared,  manifestly 
by  his  broken  jogging  gait  he  was  only  an  earthly 
creature  and  could  not  have  been  trusted  on  the  roof. 
Or  the  moon,  sailing  across  the  sky,  invited  the 
thought  that  tonight  beyond  the  accustomed  hour  and 


HANGING  A  STOCKING  AT  CHRISTMAS    171 

for  a  purpose  it  would  throw  its  light  across  the  roofs 
to  mark  the  chimneys. 

Presently  mother  called  up  from  the  hall  below. 
Had  we  gone  to  bed?  Reluctantly  now  we  began  to 
thumb  the  buttons.  Off  came  our  clothes,  both  shirts 
together  tonight  for  better  speed  in  dressing.  And 
all  the  night  pants  and  drawers  hung  as  close  neigh 
bors,  one  within  the  other,  with  stockings  dangling 
at  the  ends,  for  quick  resumption.  We  slipped 
shivering  into  the  cold  sheets.  Down  below  the  bed, 
by  special  permission,  stood  the  cook's  clock,  wound 
up  tight  for  its  explosion  at  six  o'clock. 

Then  came  silence  and  the  night.  .  .  . 

Presently,  all  of  a  sudden,  Brrr--!  There  arose  a 
deafening  racket  in  the  room.  Had  the  reindeer 
come  afoul  of  the  chimney?  Had  the  loaded  sleigh 
crashed  upon  the  roof?  Were  pirates  on  the  stairs? 
We  awoke  finally,  and  smothered  the  alarm  in  the 
pillows.  A  match !  The  gas !  And  now  a  thrill  went 
through  us.  Although  it  was  still  as  black  as  ink 
outside,  at  last  the  great  day  of  all  the  year  had  come. 

It  was,  therefore,  before  the  dawn  that  we  stole 
downstairs  in  our  stockings — dressed  loosely  and 
without  too  great  precision  in  our  hurry.  Buttons 
that  lay  behind  were  neglected,  nor  did  it  fret  us  if  a 
garment  came  on  twisted.  It  was  a  rare  tooth  that 
felt  the  brush  this  morning,  no  matter  how  it  was 
coddled  through  the  year. 

We  carried  our  shoes,  but  this  was  not  entirely  in 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


consideration  for  the  sleeping  house.  Rather,  our 
care  proceeded  from  an  enjoyment  of  our  stealth;  for 
to  rise  before  the  dawn  when  the  lamps  were  still 
lighted  on  the  street  and  issue  in  our  stockings,  was 
to  taste  adventure.  It  had  not  exactly  the  zest  of 
burglary,  although  it  was  of  kin:  nor  was  it  quite 
like  the  search  for  buried  treasure  which  we  played 
on  common  days:  yet  to  slink  along  the  hallway  on 
a  pitch-black  Christmas  morning,  with  shoes  dangling 
by  the  strings,  was  to  realize  a  height  of  happiness 
unequaled. 

Quietly  we  tiptoed  down  the  stairs  on  whose  steep 
rail  we  had  so  often  slid  in  the  common  light  of  day, 
now  so  strangely  altered  by  the  shadows.  Below  in 
the  hall  the  great  clock  ticked,  loudly  and  with  satis 
faction  that  its  careful  count  was  done  and  its  seconds 
all  despatched.  There  was  a  gurgle  in  its  throat 
before  it  struck  the  hour,  as  some  folk  clear  their 
throats  before  they  sing. 

As  yet  there  was  not  a  blink  of  day.  The  house 
was  as  black  as  if  it  practiced  to  be  a  cave,  yet  an 
instinct  instructed  us  that  now  at  least  darkness  was 
safe.  There  were  frosty  patterns  on  the  windows  of 
the  sitting-room,  familiar  before  only  on  our  bedroom 
windows.  Here  in  the  sitting-room  arose  dim  shapes 
which  probably  were  its  accustomed  furniture,  but 
which  to  our  excited  fancy  might  be  sleds  and  veloci 
pedes. 


HANGING  A  STOCKING  AT  CHRISTMAS    173 

We  groped  for  a  match.  There  was  a  splutter  that 
showed  red  in  the  hollow  of  my  brother's  hand. 

After  the  first  glad  shock,  it  was  our  habit  to  rum 
mage  in  the  general  midden  outside  our  stockings. 
If  there  was  a  drum  upon  the  heap,  should  not  first 
a  tune  be  played — softly  lest  it  rouse  the  house?  Or 
if  a  velocipede  stood  beside  the  fender,  surely  the 
restless  creature  chafed  for  exercise  and  must  be 
ridden  a  few  times  around  the  room.  Or  perhaps  a 
sled  leaned  against  the  chair  (it  but  rested  against 
the  rigors  of  the  coming  day)  and  one  should  feel  its 
runners  to  learn  whether  they  are  whole  and  round, 
for  if  flat  and  fixed  with  screws  it  is  no  better  than  a 
sled  for  girls  with  feet  tucked  up  in  front.  On  such 
a  sled,  no  one  trained  to  the  fashions  of  the  slide 
would  deign  to  take  a  belly- slammer,  for  the  larger 
boys  would  cry  out  with  scorn  and  point  their 
sneering  mittens. 

The  stocking  was  explored  last.  It  was  like  a  grab- 
bag,  but  glorified  and  raised  to  a  more  generous  level. 
On  meaner  days  shriveled  grab-bags  could  be  got  at 
the  corner  for  a  penny — if  such  mild  fortune  fell  your 
way — mere  starvelings  by  comparison — and  to  this 
shop  you  had  often  trotted  after  school  when  learning 
sat  heaviest  on  your  soul.  If  a  nickel  had  accrued  to 
you  from  the  sale  of  tintags,  it  was  better,  of  course, 
to  lay  it  out  in  pop;  but  with  nothing  better  than  a 
penny,  there  was  need  of  sharp  denial.  How  you 
lingered  before  the  horehound  jar!  Coltsfoot,  too, 


174  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

was  but  a  penny  to  the  stick  and  pleased  the  palate. 
Or  one  could  do  worse  than  licorice.  But  finally  you 
settled  on  a  grab-bag.  You  roused  an  old  woman 
from  her  knitting  behind  the  stove  and  demanded  that 
a  choice  of  grab-bags  be  placed  before  you.  Then, 
like  the  bearded  phrenologist  at  the  side-show  of  the 
circus,  you  put  your  fingers  on  them  to  read  their 
humps.  Perhaps  an  all-day  sucker  lodged  inside — 
a  glassy  or  an  agate — marbles  best  for  pugging — or 
a  brass  ring  with  a  ruby. 

Through  the  year  these  bags  sufficed,  but  the 
Christmas  stocking  was  a  deeper  and  finer  mystery. 
In  the  upper  leg  were  handkerchiefs  from  grand 
mother — whose  thoughts  ran  prudentially  on  noses — 
mittens  and  a  cap — useful  presents  of  duller  pur 
pose — things  that  were  due  you  anyway  and  would 
have  come  in  the  course  of  time.  But  down  in  the 
darker  meshes  of  the  stocking,  when  you  had  turned 
the  corner  of  the  heel,  there  were  the  sweet  extras  of 
life — a  mouth-organ,  a  baseball,  a  compass  and  a 
watch. 

Some  folk  have  a  Christmas  tree  instead  of  hang 
ing  their  stockings,  but  this  is  the  preference  of  older 
folk  rather  than  the  preference  of  children.  Such 
persons  wish  to  observe  a  child's  enjoyment,  and  this 
is  denied  them  if  the  stocking  is  opened  in  the  dawn. 
Under  a  pretense  of  instruction  they  sit  in  an  absurd 
posture  under  the  tree;  but  they  do  no  more  than 
read  the  rules  and  are  blind  to  the  obscurer  uses  of 


HANGING  A  STOCKING  AT  CHRISTMAS    175 

the  toys.  As  they  find  occasion,  the  children  run  off 
and  play  in  a  quieter  room  with  some  old  and  broken 
toy. 

Who  can  interpret  the  desires  of  children?  They 
are  a  race  apart  from  us.  At  times,  for  a  moment, 
we  bring  them  to  attention;  then  there  is  a  scurry  of 
feet  and  they  are  gone.  Although  they  seem  to  sit 
at  table  with  us,  they  are  beyond  a  frontier  that  we 
cannot  pass.  Their  words  are  ours,  but  applied  to 
foreign  uses.  If  we  try  to  follow  their  truant 
thoughts,  like  the  lame  man  of  the  story  we  limp  be 
hind  a  shooting  star.  We  bestow  on  them  a  blind 
condescension,  not  knowing  how  their  imagination 
outclimbs  our  own.  And  we  cramp  them  with  our 
barren  learning. 

I  assert,  therefore,  that  it  is  better  to  find  one's 
presents  in  the  dawn,  when  there  is  freedom.  In  all 
the  city,  wherever  there  are  lights,  children  have 
taken  a  start  upon  the  day.  Then,  although  the  toys 
are  strange,  there  is  adventure  in  prying  at  their 
uses.  If  one  commits  a  toy  to  a  purpose  undreamed 
of  by  its  maker,  it  but  rouses  the  invention  to  further 
discovery.  Once  on  a  dark  and  frosty  Christmas 
morning,  I  spent  a  puzzling  hour  upon  a  coffee- 
grinder — a  present  to  my  mother — in  a  delusion  that 
it  was  a  rare  engine  destined  for  myself.  It  might 
have  been  a  bank  had  it  possessed  a  slot  for  coins. 
A  little  eagle  surmounted  the  top,  yet  this  was  not  a 
sufficient  clue.  The  handle  offered  the  hope  that  it 


176  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

was  a  music-box,  but  although  I  turned  it  round  and 
round,  and  noises  issued  from  its  body  quite  foreign 
to  my  other  toys,  yet  I  could  not  pronounce  it  music. 
With  sails  it  might  have  been  a  windmill.  I  laid  it  on 
its  side  and  stood  it  on  its  head  without  conclusion. 
It  was  painted  red,  and  that  gave  it  a  wicked  look, 
but  no  other  villainy  appeared.  To  this  day  as  often 
as  I  pass  a  coffee-grinder  in  a  grocer's  shop  I  turn  its 
handle  in  memory  of  my  perplexing  hour.  And  even 
if  one  remains  unschooled  to  the  uses  of  the  toys,  their 
discovery  in  the  dawn  while  yet  the  world  lies  fast 
asleep,  is  far  beyond  their  stale  performance  that  rises 
with  the  sun. 

And  yet  I  know  of  an  occurrence,  to  me  pathetic, 
that  once  attended  such  an  early  discovery.  A  dis 
tant  cousin  of  mine — a  man  really  not  related  except 
by  the  close  bond  of  my  regard — was  brought  up 
many  years  ago  by  an  uncle  of  austere  and  miserly 
nature.  Such  goodness  as  this  uncle  had  once  pos 
sessed  was  cramped  into  a  narrow  and  smothering 
piety.  He  would  have  dimmed  the  sun  upon  the 
Sabbath,  could  he  have  reached  up  tall  enough.  He 
had  no  love  in  his  heart,  nor  mirth.  My  cousin  has 
always  loved  a  horse  and  even  in  his  childhood  this 
love  was  strong.  And  so,  during  the  days  that  led  up 
to  Christmas  when  children  speculate  upon  their  de 
sires  and  check  them  on  their  fingers,  he  kept  asking 
his  uncle  for  a  pony.  At  first,  as  you  might  know, 
his  uncle  was  stolid  against  the  thought,  but  finally, 


HANGING  A  STOCKING  AT  CHRISTMAS    177 

with  many  winks  and  nods — pleasantries  beyond  his 
usual  habit — he  assented. 

Therefore  in  the  early  darkness  of  the  day,  the 
child  came  down  to  find  his  gift.  First,  probably,  he 
went  to  the  stable  and  climbing  on  the  fence  he  looked 
through  the  windows  for  an  unaccustomed  form  inside 
the  stalls.  Next  he  looked  to  see  whether  the  pony 
might  be  hitched  to  the  post  in  front  of  the  house,  in 
the  manner  of  the  family  doctor.  The  search  failing 
and  being  now  somewhat  disturbed  with  doubt,  he 
entered  his  nursery  on  the  slim  chance  that  the  pony 
might  be  there.  The  room  was  dark  and  he  listened 
on  the  sill,  if  he  might  hear  him  whinny.  Feeling  his 
way  along  the  hearth  he  came  on  nothing  greater  than 
his  stocking  which  was  tied  to  the  andiron.  It  bulged 
and  stirred  his  curiosity.  He  thrust  in  his  hand  and 
coming  on  something  sticky,  he  put  his  fingers  in  his 
mouth.  They  were  of  a  delightful  sweetness.  He 
now  paused  in  his  search  for  the  pony  and  drawing 
out  a  huge  lump  of  candy  he  applied  himself.  But 
the  day  was  near  and  he  had  finished  no  more  than 
half,  when  a  ray  of  light  permitted  him  to  see  what 
he  ate.  It  was  a  candy  horse — making  good  the 
promise  of  his  uncle.  This  and  a  Testament  had 
been  stuffed  inside  his  stocking.  The  Testament  was 
wrapped  in  tissue,  but  the  horse  was  bitten  to  the 
middle.  It  had  been  at  best  but  a  poor  substitute 
for  what  he  wanted,  yet  his  love  was  so  broad  that 
it  included  even  a  sugar  horse;  and  this,  alas,  he  had 


178  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

consumed  unknowing  in  the  dark.  And  even  now 
when  the  dear  fellow  tells  the  story  after  these  many 
years  have  passed,  and  comes  to  the  sober  end  with 
the  child  crying  in  the  twilight  of  the  morning,  I 
realize  as  not  before  that  there  should  be  no  Christ 
mas  kept  unless  it  be  with  love  and  mirth. 

It  was  but  habit  that  we  hung  our  stockings  at  the 
chimney — the  piano  would  have  done  as  well — for  I 
retain  but  the  slightest  memory  of  a  belief  in  Santa 
Claus:  perhaps  at  most,  as  I  have  hinted,  a  far-off 
haze  of  wonder  while  looking  through  the  window 
upon  the  snowy  sky — at  night  a  fancied  clatter 
on  the  roof,  if  I  lay  awake.  And  therefore  in  a 
chimney  there  was  no  greater  mystery  than  was  in 
herent  in  any  hole  that  went  off  suspiciously  in  the 
dark.  There  was  a  fearful  cave  beneath  the  steps 
that  mounted  from  the  rear  to  the  front  garret.  This 
was  wrapped  in  Cimmerian  darkness — which  is  the 
strongest  pigment  known — and  it  extended  from  its 
mouth  beyond  the  furthest  stretch  of  leg.  To  the 
disillusioned,  indeed,  this  cave  was  harmless,  for  it 
merely  offset  the  lower  ceiling  of  the  bathroom  below ; 
yet  to  us  it  was  a  cave  unparalleled.  Little  by 
little  we  ventured  in,  until  in  time  we  could  sit  on 
the  snug  joists  inside  with  the  comfortable  feeling  of 
pirates.  Presently  we  hit  on  the  device  of  hanging 
a  row  of  shining  maple-syrup  tins  along  the  wall  out 
side  where  they  were  caught  by  the  dusty  sunlight, 
which  was  thus  reflected  in  on  us.  By  the  light  of 


HANGING  A  STOCKING  AT  CHRISTMAS    179 

these  dim  moons  the  cave  showed  itself  to  be  the  size 
of  a  library  table.  And  here,  also,  we  crouched  on 
dark  and  cloudy  days  when  the  tins  were  in  eclipse, 
and  found  a  dreadful  joy  when  the  wind  scratched 
upon  the  roof. 

In  the  basement,  also,  there  was  a  central  hall  that 
disappeared  forever  under  an  accumulation  of  porch 
chairs  and  lumber.  Here  was  no  light  except  what 
came  around  two  turns  from  the  laundry.  Even 
Annie  the  cook,  a  bold  venturesome  person,  had 
never  quite  penetrated  to  a  full  discovery  of  this  hall 
way.  A  proper  approach  into  the  darkness  was  on 
hands  and  knees,  and  yet  there  were  barrels  and 
boxes  to  overcome.  Therefore,  as  we  were  bred  to 
these  broader  discoveries,  a  mere  chimney  in  the 
sitting-room,  which  arose  safely  from  the  fenders,  was 
but  a  mild  and  pleasant  tunnel  to  the  roof. 

And  if  a  child  believes  in  Santa  Glaus  and  chim 
neys,  and  that  his  presents  are  stored  in  a  glittering 
kingdom  across  the  wintry  hills,  he  will  miss  the  finer 
pleasure  of  knowing  that  they  are  hidden  somewhere 
in  his  own  house.  For  myself,  I  would  not  willingly 
forego  certain  dizzy  ascents  to  the  topmost  shelves  of 
the  storeroom,  where,  with  my  head  close  under  the 
ceiling  and  my  foot  braced  against  the  wall,  I  have 
examined  suspicious  packages  that  came  into  the 
house  by  stealth.  As  likely  as  not,  at  the  ringing  of 
the  door-bell,  we  had  been  whisked  into  a  back  room. 
Presently  there  was  a  foot  sounding  on  the  stairs  and 


180  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

across  the  ceiling.  Then  we  were  released.  But 
something  had  arrived. 

Thereafter  we  found  excitement  in  rummaging  in 
unlikely  places — a  wary  lifting  of  summer  garments 
laid  away,  for  a  peek  beneath — a  journey  on  one's 
stomach  under  the  spare-room  bed — a  pilgrimage 
around  the  cellar  with  a  flaring  candle — furtive 
explorations  of  the  storeroom.  And  when  we  came  to 
a  door  that  was  locked — Aha!  Here  was  a  puzzle 
and  a  problem!  We  tried  every  key  in  the  house, 
right  side  up  and  upside  down.  Bluebeard's  wife, 
poor  creature, — if  I  read  the  tale  aright, — was  merely 
seeking  her  Christmas  presents  around  the  house 
before  the  proper  day. 

The  children  of  a  friend  of  mine,  however,  have 
been  brought  up  to  a  belief  in  Santa  Glaus,  and  on 
Christmas  Eve  they  have  the  pretty  custom  of  filling 
their  shoes  with  crackers  and  scraps  of  bread  by  way 
of  fodder  for  the  reindeer.  When  the  shoes  are  found 
empty  in  the  morning,  but  with  crumbs  about — as 
though  the  hungry  reindeer  spilled  them  in  their 
haste — it  fixes  the  deception. 

But  if  one  must  have  a  Christmas  tree,  I  recom 
mend  the  habit  of  some  friends  of  mine.  In  front  of 
their  home,  down  near  the  fence,  is  a  trim  little  cedar. 
T—  -  connects  this  with  electric  wires  and  hangs 
on  it  gayly  colored  lamps.  Every  night  for  a  week, 
until  the  new  year,  these  lights  shine  across  the  snow 
and  are  the  delight  of  travelers  on  the  road.  The 


HANGING  A  STOCKING  AT  CHRISTMAS    181 

Christmas  stars,  it  seems,  for  this  hallowed  season 
have  come  to  earth. 

We  gave  the  family  dinner.  On  my  mother  fell 
the  extra  labor,  but  we  took  the  general  credit.  All 
the  morning  the  relatives  arrived — thin  and  fat.  But 
if  one  of  them  bore  a  package  or  if  his  pockets  sagged, 
we  showed  him  an  excessive  welcome.  Sometimes 
there  was  a  present  boxed  and  wrapped  to  a  mighty 
bulk.  From  this  we  threw  off  thirty  papers  and  the 
bundle  dwindled,  still  no  gift  appeared.  In  this  lay 
the  sweetness  of  the  jest,  for  finally,  when  the  con 
tents  were  shriveled  to  a  kernel,  in  the  very  heart  of 
it  there  lay  a  bright  penny  or  common  marble. 

All  this  time  certain  savory  whiffs  have  been  blow 
ing  from  the  kitchen.  Twice  at  least  my  mother  has 
put  her  head  in  at  the  door  to  count  the  relatives. 
And  now  when  the  clock  on  the  mantel  strikes  two— 
a  bronze  Lincoln  deliberating  forever  whether  he  will 
sign  the  Emancipation  Bill — the  dining-room  door 
is  opened. 

The  table  was  drawn  out  to  prodigious  length  and 
was  obliquely  set  across  the  room.  As  early  as  yes 
terday  the  extra  leaves  had  been  brought  from  the 
pantry,  and  we  had  all  taken  part  in  fitting  them 
together.  Not  to  disturb  the  larger  preparation,  our 
supper  and  breakfast  had  been  served  in  the  kitchen. 
And  even  now  to  eat  in  the  kitchen,  if  the  table  is 
set  before  the  window  and  there  is  a  flurry  of  snow 


182  CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 

outside,  is  to  feel  pleasantly  the  proximity  of  a  great 
occasion. 

The  Christmas  table  was  so  long  and  there  were 
so  many  of  us,  that  a  few  of  the  chairs  were  caught 
in  a  jog  of  the  wall  and  had  no  proper  approach  ex 
cept  by  crawling  on  hands  and  knees  beneath  it.  Each 
year  it  was  customary  to  request  my  maiden  aunt,  a 
prim  lady  who  bordered  on  seventy  and  had  limbs 
instead  of  legs,  to  undertake  the  passage.  Each  year 
we  listened  for  the  jest  and  shouted  with  joy  when 
the  request  was  made.  There  were  other  jests,  too, 
that  were  dear  to  us  and  grew  better  with  the  years. 
My  aunt  was  reproved  for  boisterous  conduct,  and 
although  she  sat  as  silent  as  a  mouse,  she  was  always 
warned  against  the  cider.  Each  year,  also,  as  soon 
as  the  dessert  appeared,  there  was  a  demand  that  a 
certain  older  cousin  tell  the  Judge  West  story.  But 
the  jest  lay  in  the  demand  instead  of  in  the  story,  for 
although  there  was  a  clamor  of  applause,  the  story 
was  never  told  and  it  teases  me  forever.  Then  another 
cousin,  who  journeyed  sometimes  to  New  York, 
usually  instructed  us  in  the  latest  manner  of  eating 
an  orange  in  the  metropolis.  But  we  disregarded  his 
fashionable  instruction,  and  peeled  ours  round  and 
round. 

The  dinner  itself  was  a  prodigious  feast.  The  cook- 
stove  must  have  rested  and  panted  for  a  week  there 
after.  Before  long,  Annie  got  so  red  bringing  in 
turkeys  and  cranberry  sauce — countless  plates  heaped 


HANGING  A  STOCKING  AT  CHRISTMAS    183 

and  toppling  with  vegetables  and  meats — that  one 
might  think  she  herself  was  in  process  to  become  a 
pickled  beet  and  would  presently  enter  on  a  platter. 

In  the  afternoon  we  rested,  but  at  night  there  was 
a  dance,  for  which  my  maiden  aunt  played  the  piano. 
The  dear  good  soul,  whose  old  brown  fingers  were 
none  too  limber,  had  skill  that  scarcely  mounted  to 
the  speed  of  a  polka,  but  she  was  steady  at  a  waltz. 
There  was  one  tune — bink  a  bunk  bunk,  bink  a  bunk 
bunk — that  went  around  and  around  with  an  agree 
able  monotony  even  when  the  player  nodded.  There 
was  a  legend  in  the  family  that  once  she  fell  asleep  in 
the  performance,  and  that  the  dancers  turned  down 
the  lights  and  left  the  room;  to  her  amazement  when 
presently  she  awoke,  for  she  thought  she  had  outsat 
the  party. 

My  brother  and  I  had  not  advanced  to  the  trick 
of  dancing  and  we  built  up  our  blocks  in  the  corner 
of  the  room  in  order  that  the  friskier  dancers  might 
kick  them  over  as  they  passed.  Chief  in  the  perform 
ance  was  the  Judge  West  cousin  who,  although 
whiskered  almost  into  middle  age,  had  a  merry  heart 
and  knew  how  to  play  with  children.  Sometimes,  by 
consent,  we  younger  fry  sat  beneath  the  piano,  which 
was  of  an  old  square  pattern,  and  worked  the  pedals 
for  my  aunt,  in  order  that  her  industry  might  be  un 
divided  on  the  keys.  It  is  amazing  what  a  variety 
we  could  cast  upon  the  waltz,  now  giving  it  a  muffled 


184 


CHIMNEY-POT  PAPERS 


sound,  and  presently  offering  the  dancers  a  prolonged 
roaring. 

Midway  in  the  evening,  when  the  atrocities  of 
dinner  were  but  mildly  remembered,  ice-cream  was 
brought  in.  It  was  not  hard  as  at  dinner,  but  had 
settled  to  a  delicious  softness,  and  could  be  mushed 
upon  a  spoon.  Then  while  the  party  again  proceeded, 
and  my  aunt  resumed  her  waltz,  we  were  despatched 
upstairs. 

On  the  bed  lay  our  stockings,  still  tied  with  string, 
that  had  been  stuffed  with  presents  in  the  dawn.  But 
the  morning  had  now  sunk  into  immeasurable  dis 
tance  and  seemed  as  remote  as  Job  himself.  And  all 
through  the  evening,  as  we  lay  abed  and  listened  to 
the  droning  piano  below,  we  felt  a  spiritual  hollow- 
ness  because  the  great  day  had  passed. 


'   , 


1-ioow-g 


Chimney-pot  papers. 


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